Chapter 5: Printing Comes to Europe

Watermarks

1282

In papermaking, a translucent emblem, or watermark, can be produced by pressure from a raised design on a mold. It is visible when a sheet of paper is held up to light. These were used in Italy as early as 1282, and as they grew in popularity, they began to be used to designate sheet and mold sizes as well as paper grade.

Importance of Paper

1400

Several factors during 15th century Europe made typography feasible: an insatiable demand for books, an emerging literate middle class, students in the rapidly expanding universities who had seized the monopoly on literacy from the clergy & created a vast new market for reading material & the process of bookmaking, which had changed little in 1000 years. However, without paper, which reached Europe by way of a 600-year journey, the speed & efficiency of printing would have been useless.

Xylography

1400

The technical term for the relief printing from a raised surface originated in Asia in 593 AD. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Came to Europe at the end of the 14th century.

The Ars Moriendi

1415

Death was an ever-present preoccupation in fourteenth-century Europe. The great cycles of bubonic plague, called the Black Death, claimed one-fourth of Europe’s inhabitants during the fourteenth century and caused thousands of villages to either vanish totally or become critically depopulated. The Ars Moriendi was a type of block book that offered advice on preparing for death and how to meet one’s final hour

Laurens Janszoon Coster: Moveable Type

1430

Printers in Germany, the Netherlands, France, and Italy sought after the mechanization of book production by such means as movable type. It was Laurens Janszoon Coster of Haarlem in Holland who explored the concept of "movable type" first by cutting out letters or words from his woodblocks for reuse.

“alphabets of steel”

1444

In Avignon, France, goldsmith Procopius Waldfogel was involved in the production of “alphabets of steel” around 1444, but with no known results.

Johann Gutenberg: the Type Mold

1450

Around 1450, Johann Gutenberg was the first to bring together the complex systems and subsystems necessary to print a typographic book, including a thick, tacky ink that could be smoothly applied and did not run off the metal type; a strong, sturdy press; and a metal alloy that was soft enough to cast yet hard enough to hold up for thousands of impressions. But the key to his invention was the "type mold" used for casting the individual letters.

Copperplate Engravings

1450

At the same time (and in the same area of Europe) that Johann Gutenberg invented moveable type, an unidentified artist called the Master of the Playing Cards created the earliest known Copperplate Engravings.

Invention of the Typographic Press

1450

Invented by Johannes Gutenberg. In addition to the rapid spread of knowledge, the invention of the typographic press is also directly responsible for increased literacy in the fifteenth century.

“Letters of Indulgence” by Pope Nicholas V

1454

Early surviving examples of typographic design and printing include a German poem on the Last Judgment, four calendars, and a number of editions of Latin grammar by Aelius Donatus. The earliest dated examples of typographic printing are the “Letters of Indulgence” by Pope Nicholas V, issued in Mainz, Germany in 1454

Textura Lettering

1455

Johann Gutenberg adopted "textura", the style of manuscript lettering commonly used by German scribes of his day, as the model for his type, because early printers sought to compete with calligraphers by imitating their work as closely as possible.

Forty-two Line Bible

1455

Created by Johannes Gutenberg. The Gutenberg Bible was among the earliest major books printed using mass-produced movable metal type in Europe. It marked the start of the "Gutenberg Revolution" and the age of printed books in the West. The book is valued and revered for its high aesthetic and artistic qualities as well as its historic significance

Latin Psalter

1457

The magnificent Latin Psalter published by Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer on August 14, 1457, was the first book to bear a printer’s trademark and imprint, printed date of publication, and colophon. In addition, the Psalter had large red and blue initials printed from two-part metal blocks that were inked separately, reassembled, and either printed with the text in one press impression or stamped after the text was printed. These famous decorated two-color initials were a major innovation.

Fust and Shoeffer’s Rationale Divinorum Officiorum

1459

Fust and Shoeffer’s Rationale Divinorum Officiorum (Rationale of Holy Duties) was an important innovation because it was the first typographic book to use a small-sized type style to conserve space.

The Biblia Pauperum

1462

The Biblia Pauperum was a block book intended to instruct the faithful in Old and New Testament parallel narratives.

Matrix

1805

In casting type, the negative impression of a character is pressed into this, then filled with a molten lead alloy that creates the finished piece of type.