Printing press
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Printing press from 1811, taken in Munich, Germany. |
The
printing press is a mechanical
printing device for making copies of identical
text on multiple sheets of
paper. Movable type, which allowed individual characters to be arranged to form words, was invented in
China by
Bi Sheng between
1041 to
1048. The use of movable type to mass produce printed works was popularized by a
German goldsmith and eventual
printer,
Johannes Gutenberg, in the 1440s. While there are several local claims for the invention of the printing press in other parts of
Europe, including
Laurens Janszoon Coster in the
Netherlands and
Panfilo Castaldi in
Italy, Gutenberg is credited by most scholars with its initial invention.
The original method of printing was
block printing, pressing sheets of paper onto individually carved wooden blocks (
xylography). Block printing is believed to have originated in
Asia. Recently, an excavation of a
Korean pagoda unearthed a Buddhist sutra which predates the dates to AD 750-751, and is now considered the oldest discovered printed work in the world. [
1] [
2]. Before this discovery, it was believed that the earliest known printed text was the
Diamond Sutra (a Buddhist scripture), printed in China in mid-9th century. The technique was also known in
Europe, where it was mostly used to print
Bibles. Because of the difficulties inherent in carving massive quantities of minute text for every block, and given the levels of illiteracy at the time, texts such as the "Pauper's Bibles" emphasized illustrations and used words sparsely. As a new block had to be carved for each page, printing different
books was an incredibly time consuming project.
Movable type allowed for much more flexible processes than hand copying or block printing. It was invented in 1041 by
Bi Sheng in
China. Sheng used clay type, which broke easily, but
Wang Zhen later carved more durable type from wood. Eventually, invention of movable type metal printing press came about in
1234 during the
Goryeo Dynasty of
Korea by
Chwe Yun-Ui. Examples of this metal type are on display in the Asian Reading Room of the
Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The oldest extant movable metal print book is the
Jikji, printed in Korea in 1377.
Since there are thousands of Chinese characters, the benefit of the technique was not as large as with
alphabetic based languages, which typically are made up of fewer than 50 characters. Still, movable type spurred scholarly pursuits in
Song China and facilitated more creative modes of printing. Nevertheless, movable type was not extensively used in China until the European-style printing press was introduced in relatively recent times.
Johann Gutenberg is credited with inventing the first printing press. Gutenberg is also credited with the first use of a soy-based
ink. He printed on both
vellum and
paper, the latter having been introduced in
Europe somewhat earlier from
China by way of the
Arabs, who had a
paper mill in operation in
Baghdad as early as 794.
Before inventing the printing press in the 1440s, Gutenberg had worked as a
goldsmith. The skills and knowledge of metals that he learned as a craftsman were crucial to the later invention of the press. Gutenberg made his type from an alloy of
lead,
tin, and
antimony, which was critical for producing durable type that produced high-quality prints.
Diffusion of printing in Europe
In Europe, books were copied mainly in
monasteries, or (from the
13th century) in commercial
scriptoria, where
scribes wrote them out by hand. Books were therefore a scarce resource. While it might take someone a year or more to hand copy a Bible, with the Gutenberg press it was possible to create several hundred copies a year, with two or three people who could read (and proofread), and a few people to support the effort. Each sheet still had to be fed manually, which limited the reproduction speed; and the type had to be set manually for each new page, which limited the number of different pages created per day. Books produced in this period, between the first work of Johann Gutenberg and the year 1500, are collectively referred to as
incunabula.
The rise of printed works was not immediately popular. Not only did the
papal court contemplate making printing presses an industry requiring a license from the Catholic Church (an idea rejected in the end), but as early as the 15th century some nobles refused to have printed books in their libraries, thinking that to do so would sully their valuable handcopied manuscripts. Similar resistance was later encountered in much of the Islamic world, where calligraphic traditions were extremely important, and also in the Far East.
Despite this resistance, Gutenberg's printing press spread rapidly, and within thirty years of its invention in
1453, towns and cities across Europe had functional printing presses.
Johann Heynlin, for example, introduced the first press to
Paris in
1470. The city of
Tübingen saw its first printed work, a commentary by
Paul Scriptoris, in
1498. It has been suggested that this rapid expansion shows not only a higher level of industry (fueled by the high-quality European paper mills that had been opening over the previous century) than expected, but also a significantly higher level of literacy than has often been estimated.
The first printing press in a Muslim territory opened in
Andalusia in the 1480s. This printing press was run by a family of Jewish merchants who printed texts with the
Hebrew script. After the
reconquista in the 1490s, the press was moved from
Granada to
Istanbul (a popular destination for thousands of Andalusian Jews).
|
A sixteenth century printing press. |
Effects of printing on culture
The discovery and establishment of the printing of books with movable type marks a
paradigm shift in the way information was transferred in Europe. The impact of printing is comparable to the development of
language, and the invention of the
alphabet, as far as its effects on the society. It is, however, important to note that there has been much recent doubt about the dominance of print. Handwritten manuscripts continued to be produced, and the influence of the printed word on oral communication meant that no one form of communication could dominate.
They also led to the establishment of a community of
scientists (previously scientists were mostly isolated) who could easily communicate their discoveries, bringing on the
scientific revolution. Also, although early texts were printed in
Latin, books were soon produced in common European
vernacular, leading to the decline of the Latin language.
Because of the printing press,
authorship became more meaningful. It was suddenly important who had said or written what, and what the precise formulation and time of composition was. This allowed the exact citing of references, producing the rule, "One Author, one work (title), one piece of information" (Giesecke, 1989; 325). Before, the author was less important, since a copy of
Aristotle made in Paris might not be identical to one made in Bologna. For many works prior to the printing press, the name of the author was entirely lost.
Because the printing process ensured that the same information fell on the same pages, page numbering, tables of contents, and indices became common. The process of reading was also changed, gradually changing from oral readings to silent, private reading. This gradually raised the
literacy level as well, revolutionizing education.
It can also be argued that printing changed the way Europeans thought. With the older illuminated manuscripts, the emphasis was on the images and the beauty of the page. Early printed works emphasized principally the text and the line of argument. In the sciences, the introduction of the printing press marked a move from the medieval language of
metaphors to the adoption of the
scientific method.
In general, knowledge came closer to the hands of the people, since printed books could be sold for a fraction of the cost of illuminated manuscripts. There were also more copies of each book available, so that more people could discuss them. Within 50-60 years, the entire library of "classical" knowledge had been printed on the new presses (Eisenstein, 1969; 52). The spread of works also led to the creation of copies by other parties than the original author, leading to the formulation of
copyright laws. Furthermore, as the books spread into the hands of the people,
Latin was gradually replaced by the national languages. This development was one of the keys to the creation of modern nations.
Some theorists, such as
McLuhan,
Eisenstein,
Kittler, and
Giesecke, see an "alphabetic monopoly" as having developed from printing, removing the role of the image from society. Other authors stress that printed works themselves are a visual medium.
For years, book printing was considered a true art form.
Typesetting, or the placement of the characters on the page, including the use of
ligatures, was passed down from master to apprentice. In Germany, the art of typesetting was termed the "black art". It has largely been replaced by computer typesetting programs, which make it possible to get similar results with less human involvement. Some few practitioners continue to print books the way Gutenberg did. For example, there is a yearly convention of traditional book printers in
Mainz, Germany.
The Gutenberg press was much more efficient than manual copying, and as testament to its effectiveness, it was essentially unchanged from the time of its invention until the
Industrial Revolution, some three hundred years later. The "old style" press (as it was termed in the
nineteenth century) was constructed of wood and could produce 240 impressions per hour of simple work using a well experienced two-man crew.
The invention of the
steam powered press, credited to
Friedrich Koenig and
Andreas Friedrich Bauer in
1812, made it possible to print over a thousand copies of a page per hour.
Koenig and Bauer sold two of their first models to
The Times in
London in
1814, capable of 1,100 impressions per hour. The first edition so printed was on November 28, 1814. Koenig and Bauer went on to perfect the early model so that it could print on both sides of a sheet at once. This began to make
newspapers available to a mass audience (which in turn helped spread literacy), and from the 1820s changed the nature of
book production, forcing a greater standardization in titles and other
metadata.
 |
Diagram of a single-side printing press c.1820 |
Koenig and Bauer's press was improved by Applegath and Cooper. The diagram indicates the principle operation of a Cooper and Applegath's Single Machine. The press is built up from a large flat inking table (A) which moves regularly back and forth, the form (B) on the table holds the type. The paper travels clockwise round a large cloth covered cylinder, the impression roller (C), and is pressed against the table. The ductor roller (D) rotates and so draws ink from the attached reservoir. The ink passes from the ductor roller to the vibrating roller (E), this moves, on its arms, in a regular motion between the ductor roller and the table. The ink is spread thinly and evenly by the distributing rollers (F) and then, as the table moves, passes onto the inking rollers (G). The axles of the inking rollers rest in groves, allowing them to rise and fall, they are also position at a slight angle to the table to improve ink distribution. As the table continues to move the form passes alternately under the inking rollers, twice, and then under the impression roller.
Later on in the middle of the 19th century the
rotary press (invented in 1833 in the
United States by
Richard M. Hoe) allowed millions of copies of a page in a single day. Mass production of printed works flourished after the transition to rolled paper, as continuous feed allowed the presses to run at a much faster pace.
Also, in the middle of the 19th century, there was a separate development of
jobbing presses, small presses capable of printing small-format pieces such as billheads, letterheads, business cards, and envelopes. Jobbing presses were capable of quick set-up (average
makeready time for a small job was under 15 minutes) and quick production (even on treadle-powered jobbing presses it was considered normal to get 1,000 impressions per hour [iph] with one pressman, with speeds of 1,500 iph often attained on simple envelope work).
Job printing emerged as a reasonably cost-effective duplicating solution for commerce at this time.
Movable type has been credited as the single most important invention of the
millennium.
Later inventions in this field include the following:
*
Lithography*
Offset printing*
Desktop publishing*
Electronic publishing (on CD-ROM or online)
*
Computer printer*
Composing stick*
Graphic Design*
Printmaking*
Typography*
Color printing*
Flexography*
Anilox*
David Bruce*
George E. Clymer*
William Clowes*
National Print Museum of Ireland*
Print culture* Fontaine, Jean-Paul.
L'aventure du livre: Du manuscrit medieval a nos jours. Paris: Bibliotheque de l'image, 1999.
