This edition is from the presses of Johannes Füst and Peter Schoeffer, Gutenberg's successors in Mainz. Peter Schoeffer continued to print in Mainz, producing many high-quality works, including this edition of De civitate Dei. The typefaces are the same used to print his 1462 Bible and the Commentary appearing in the 1459 Durandus.

The opening to each book is extensively rubricated in red and blue, while book numbers and illuminated capitals appear on each page. An unsigned, nineteenth-century note on the final leaf attributes the rubrication to Lazarus von Andlau. The author of the note states he has seen a book signed by Lazarus with similar rubrication in the shop of the bookseller Wessenau provenance.

This second edition includes the commentary by the Oxford Dominicans Nicolaus Trevet (fl. 1297-1334) and Thomas Waleys (d. 1349), printed separately from the text. Each book is preceded by a chapter table.

This copy of De civitate Dei was given to the Whitefish Bay Public Library (WBPL) in 1956 by Mrs. Sidney C. Fraser in memory of her husband, a collector of rare books and a WPBL Board member. It was on loan to the Golda Meir Library through 1999 to provide an optimal environment for preservation and to ensure secure access to the volume by students and scholars. It was acquired by Marquette University, Milwaukee, in March 1999 through the generosity of Frank and Rose Mary Matusinec, and was added to the university's library as its symbolic Millionth Volume.