‘Donatus’ is a common abbreviated name for the Ars grammatica by Aelius Donatus — a textbook of Latin, widespread in the middle ages. 

The exhibition presents two fragments of the eighth page of an edition of 30-line donatus. The pages were printed in Mainz, in font B 36 belonging to Johannes Gutenberg, and may have come from his printing house. Donatuses were printed mainly on parchment and, after being used by students, could be applied as material for binding books. All the donatuses printed in Gutenberg fonts have reached our time only in fragments, ranging in size from several pages to several lines. The presented page fragments are the only known copy of this edition. They were found in an old book’s binding.

Inexpensive publications like this — almanacs, calendars, leaflets, grammar textbooks, pamphlets, indulgences — became the basis for a new industry. They were not kept in libraries as a great treasure; they were cheap and disposable, intended for everyday use. Today it is difficult for us to imagine what the amount of these products was: many issues have not reached us; often, from a huge number of copies, only one or two are miraculously preserved. However, it is these modest pages presented at the exhibition that give the most expressive picture of the world of those new readers. And no wonder that Johannes Gutenberg started his work with such publications.