According to some, the printed word — those paper-borne squiggles of ink you’re currently gazing at — will be obsolete in another generation or two. This, of course, remains to be seen, and in the meantime the Morgan Library’s installation of its three Gutenberg Bibles provides a glorious reminder of the aesthetic virtues of printed text. It also illuminates the early challenges posed by the letterpress, an invention that revolutionized human communication, and spread, little changed over the next 350 years, to almost every corner of the globe.

Johann Gutenberg (c. 1400-68) did not invent printing — the Chinese had for centuries employed various printing methods — but by the 1450s in Mainz, Germany, he had developed a new ink and a means of casting moveable metal type that made large-scale production of text feasible. A press could now complete in weeks what a team of scribes formerly produced over their lifetimes. Not a great deal is known about Gutenberg’s business or personal life, but his talents appear to have been manifold; they clearly included the capabilities of a mechanical inventor, a craftsman, a salesman, and above all the genius to conceive and push through a novel and highly complex enterprise. As the Morgan’s installation demonstrates, he also had a fine eye for the design of the printed page.

In all, Gutenberg’s press is believed to have produced about 180 Bibles, a quarter of them on vellum and the rest on paper. Fewer than 50 copies survive today, and many of these only as fragments. The Morgan is the only institution in the world to possess three copies, and each is in remarkably good condition and boasts unique characteristics. The three now lie opened in display cases in one of the Morgan’s intimate ground-floor galleries, accompanied by several related works and helpful wall texts. The Bibles are impressively large. Two of the copies — one on paper, the other vellum — consist of nearly 1,300 pages divided into two stout volumes; the third contains only the Hebrew Bible in a single binding. Most impressive, though, is the meticulous design of the pages: the decorative initials; the graceful proportions of the twin columns on each page; the crisp, handsome “textura” typeface emphasizing the letters’ vertical and horizontal elements. The vellum Bible is especially sumptuous, with elaborate initials and floral designs in the margins. The wall text includes a reproduction of a page from a lectionary (1430-40) with the same textura lettering, showing how Gutenberg’s typeface faithfully replicated the formal handwritten text of the time.

Labels on the display cases describe the remarkable amount of planning — and rethinking — that went into these volumes. Empty spaces were left in the text for the large initials, which were later drawn in by hand. The rubrics (the red chapter headings) were originally printed with a different ink, requiring a second pass through the press for each sheet; this was deemed too time-consuming, it seems, as on later pages they, too, were added by hand. The earlier pages have 40 lines of text, but the type was later shaved down to fit two additional lines per page, probably to reduce material and labor costs. Both these economizing measures are apparent in the Bible printed on paper. The first volume has been opened to the Prologue to the Book of Kings, where the right-hand page shows printed rubrics and 40-line columns, and the left page 42-line columns. In the second volume, opened to the Book of Matthew, the rubrics are hand-lettered. (Gutenberg apparently decided to extend the print run at a certain point, because later copies show 42 lines on every page.) The Morgan’s paper copy is also notable for the fact that some pages, unlike those of most other surviving volumes, have not been trimmed down from Gutenberg’s original design by later restorers.

Nearby hangs an indulgence printed for the Catholic Church in 1454-55, likely by Gutenberg’s firm. This letter, one of thousands certifying that certain citizens had donated funds to help protect Cyprus from invading Turks, illustrates a prime market for the nascent print industry.

The single-volume Hebrew Bible copy has its own story to tell. The second volume may have been lost, or simply never printed. The unique typesetting of 22 of the Hebrew Bible pages suggests they were reprinted and combined with the sheets left over at the end of a print run. The decorations were drawn by an in-house artist, who may have speeded up the process with the use of stencils.

Next to this copy lies another imposing book, and another tale. This volume is a Psalter printed in 1459 by Gutenberg’s onetime financial backer, Johann Fust. The two had a falling-out over what they called the “work of the books,” and Fust, accompanied by his son-in-law Peter Schöffer, took over the firm and tried to steer it in a new direction: profitability. The Psalter displays a larger typeface as well as a streamlining of the methods of decorating the text. The large, stunningly intricate initials were printed in both blue and red, a feat accomplished by making them removable from the press for individual inking.

The wall text also identifies this book as the very first printed with a colophon: a final page listing the location, date, and name of the printer. Surprisingly, none of the Gutenberg Bibles contain any such references. This is in keeping, perhaps, with a certain modesty to Gutenberg’s project, which, while radically speeding up the production of books, maintained the elegance of their hand-lettered precursors. The most remarkable aspect of Gutenberg’s press, in fact, may be that it combined the very latest in efficiency with a hands-on attention to craftsmanship and design. He demonstrated that the printed word edifies, as both medium and message — a welcome notion in our day, when it’s often reduced to simply “hard copy” or “a paper trail.”

Until September 28 (225 Madison Ave., between 36th and 37th streets, 212-685-0008).