Johannes Gutenburg Begins Operation of First Mechanical Printing Press.
Gutenberg, a German blacksmith and inventor, invented the world’s first mechanical movable type printing press. The printing press was significant in the Renaissance, Protestant Reformation, and Age of Enlightenment. For the first time, making information contained in books and literature inexpensive and accessible.
Gutenberg mastered and revealed the secret of printing at Strasbourg in 1440, based on his strangely named Kunst und Aventur study (art and enterprise). It’s unclear what kind of work he was doing or whether any early experiments with moveable type printing took place there. Following then, there is a four-year gap in the record. He returned to Mainz in 1448, when he borrowed money from his brother-in-law Arnold Gelthus, likely to buy a printing press.
By 1450, the press was up and running, and a German poem, likely the first item printed there, had been produced. Gutenberg was able to persuade Johann Fust, a rich moneylender, to lend him 800 guilders. Peter Schöffer, Fust’s son-in-law, joined the business as well. In Paris, Schöffer worked as a scribe and developed some of the earliest fonts.
The Gutenberg Bible
Gutenberg’s 42-line Bible, known as the Gutenberg Bible, was published in 1455. A total of 180 copies were produced, the most on paper and some on vellum. The size of the typeface, while huge, limited Gutenberg’s Bibles to only 42 lines per page, making the text exceedingly simple to read. The religious clergy, in particular, praised the readability of the book. “The script was very neat and legible, not at all difficult to follow—your grace would be able to read it without effort, and indeed without glasses,” the future Pope Pius II wrote to Cardinal Carvajal in March 1455, recommending Gutenberg’s Bibles.
I am eternally grateful to Gutenberg for his commitment to building the printing press. I can’t imagine not having books or printed information. I pity the creator since he was in financial trouble and had to take out loans, which ended up backfiring on him. I’m impressed with how he managed to stay focused despite the challenges he faced. I enjoy reading, and this was an awesome opportunity for me to learn more about the history of printing.
Sources: https://www.thoughtco.com/johannes-gutenberg-and-the-printing-press-1991865 , https://worldhistoryproject.org/1450/johannes-gutenburg-begins-operation-of-first-mechanical-printing-press , https://www.gettyimages.ca , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Gutenberg .