Print pundits turned back the pages of history this week when a leaf from the first book ever printed sold at auction for 28,200.

Lot 122 came from a 42-line Latin Bible printed with moveable type by Johann Gutenberg and Johann Fust around 1455 in the German town of Mainz.

The 389mmx273mm "Noble Fragment" with Acts of Apostles VII:35-VIII:37 running across two columns was "Rubricated in red and blue, with headlines in alternating red and blue Lombard letters, chapter initial in red with numerals alternating in red and blue, with red capital strokes" said Christies.

It is selling one of Britains largest private libraries, which was amassed by bookseller William Foyle. He opened his famous shop in Londons Charing Cross Road in 1907.

Experts said the page was from "the first book ever printed and a historical landmark in textural as well as typographical history."

The 4,000-book collection has all four 17th-century folios of Shakespeares works and 46 copies of Kelmscott Presss The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer with William Morris woodcuts. Printed material spans works from the 11th to 20th centuries.

It is expected to fetch over 6m. Foyle, who died in 1963, housed his collection in his country home Beeleigh Abbey, a former monastery from the 12th century.

His grandsons, Christopher and Anthony, run Foyles today.