SoB Gutenburg and Printing Press

What is incunabula?

Translates to cradle, the earliest form of printing

The earliest printing books tried to imitate what?

Handwriting styles that were originally produced by monks and scribes — it was so similar you could not tell they were printed

New print styles

Typeset

How did the printing press affect the production of books?

It sped up production

Cuneiform

The oldest form of writing developed by Ancient Sumerians in Mesopotamia

• Used a stylus, a wedge-shaped tool, to make marks in clay.

• Faded away when alphabets were developed around 100 BCE.

When was wood block printing invented, and by who?

The 3rd century by the Chinese and Koreans

What material was used for wood block printing instead of paper?

Cloth or silk

Woodblock printing steps

• Carried out by using a chisel to carve characters onto woodblocks.

• Ink was applied to the raised characters on the wood.

• Pressed down a cloth on the block and then lifted it, printing the ink onto the cloth.

• The woodblock continued to be used over and over as a template.

What was a benefit of woodblock printing?

It worked towards automation and speed as the first steps away from the Book of Hours and handwritten manuscripts

Problems with woodblock printing

• If you make a mistake you can’t fix it once it’s carved

• A lot of different letters

• Woodblocks need to be laid out and kept in proper order

• Not resistant to fire

• Wood wears down over time

When was paper discovered?

7th century

Hanzi

The Chinese language that had over 100,000 characters

What did Koreans used to print characters in the 13th century, after woodblock printing?

Metal

European communication in the Middle Ages

• Most people lived in and stayed in their small isolated villages, so the only sources of information were each other and the Catholic priest.

• Almost no one could read or write the language they spoke.

• Memory and memorization ruled daily life and learning, since people couldn’t read.

• Even scholars literate in Latin used memory devices to remember what they had learned.

What did Johannes Gutenburg (capitalist supreme) accomplish?

He created the world’s first printed book using movable type — the Bible

What did Johannes Gutenburg learn from his father?

Coin production/printing

What did Gutenburg sell before he started the printing press?

Mirrors, to pilgrims who used them to capture the healing powers of holy objects

The plague

The outbreak caused Gutenburg’s mirror business to fail, and he moved on to a secret project. He wanted to invent a unique movable-type printing process

Did Gutenburg have to deal with a lot of characters?

No - he didn’t have to deal with thousands of Chinese characters – he only had to deal with 24-30 in the Latin alphabet, which is very important.

What did Gutenburg draw inspiration from for stamping?

Grape presses

Typeset

Different characters, sizes, and shapes

Movable typeset

Typeset that can be used over and over again for other projects

Tools for making typeset

The punch, matrix, and mould

The punch

Has a letter on top of it, formed by skilled workers who use chisels

Matrix

A softer metal piece that the punch would be hammered into

Mould

A mould that the matrix was locked in, then filled with hot metal and cooled to reveal the typeset letter

Paper and ink

Gutenburg used parchment and vellum at first because of low paper supply, but he found an ink composed of linseed oil and lampblack, and that paper had to be a certain thickness and slightly dampened for ink to stick properly

Indulgences

Printed for the Church, these were standardized forms used by Christians to donate money to the Catholic Church and be assured admission to Heaven. The money was used to fight off religious wars from eastern Europe

How did Gutenburg manage the costs of the printing press?

He borrowed money from many people, such as Johann Fust, one of his business partners

Why did Gutenburg decide to print the Bible?

Because the Holy Roman Empire was vast and wealthy

Most Bibles were printed using paper, but more expensive ones were printed using what?

Vellum

Blackletter/black letter gothic

The world’s first typeset (font style), used in the Gutenburg Bible

How did Gutenburg’s ink compare to ink that monks and scribes used?

It was thicker and oil-based

What did Gutenberg’s Bible consist of?

2 columns of print and 42 lines, more than 1,000 pages

What would you need to do if you wanted red ink or decorations?

You would need to press a page two times, and then artists would decorate after the pages were printed

The Gutenburg Bible was printed when?

1455

The Gutenburg Bible is our first example of …

incunabula: cradle/earliest days of early printing

Gutenberg’s Bible was produced in Latin from the _____

Vulgate

Because of Gutenberg, it now took three printers three months to produce three hundred books. It would take the scribes _____ to do the same

A lifetime

Individual leaves of Gutenberg’s Bible can be worth up to ____

$100,000

Did Gutenberg ever get rich?

No, he borrowed too much money and got sued

After about ___ years of the Gutenberg Bible, the amount of books printed skyrocketed from very few to twenty million.

50

Without the printing press, the _______ would have developed over a much slower and longer period of time.

Renaissance

Gor the next 500 years Gutenberg’s press and typeset would be used all over the world and only was only made outdated in the ______ century

19th

What was the Gutenburg Bible responsible for?

Spreading learning and education all over the world

Pullbar

Pulls down

Platen

Stamps the paper/vellum

What’s in the middle of the table?

Typeset with metal around it

Frisket

Piece of paper cut into a square that meshes with the ink; leaves it exposed and keeps it from going all over

Key steps in the printing process

1. Print shop owner obtains the manuscript.

2. Next, all contractual issues are settled (authorship, etc.).

3. Typesetters and pressmen then take over and:

   1. Read and probably argue over manuscript content (scribble).

   2. Walk to the upper and lower case and select typeset.

   3. Transfer what’s written to the composing stick backwards.

   4. Set the type in the chase.

   5. Allow space for illustrations if requested.

   6. Obtain and set paper in printing press.

   7. Ink up the typeset.

   8. Pull the lever to print.

   9. Remove paper and hang it to dry.

What does Blackletter typeface look like?

Dramatic thin and thick strokes, elaborate swirls on the serifs; based on early manuscript writings

Four major families of blackletters

Textura, Rotunda, Schwabacher, and Fraktur

Gutenburg’s typeset and Germany

• Germany used Blackletters until the early 20th century; in the 1920s it was considered to be antiquated by German designers and publishers and fell out of favor, and was replaced by the “New Typography”

• Hitler thought the new typography and declared Fraktur (a blackletter font) the people’s font

• The Nazis used Fraktur until 1941

• People associate all blackletters as Nazi fonts but this is not true

Gutenburg’s typeset today

Blackletters are mainly used for headings, logos, posters, and signs; usually used in certificates, diplomas, or degrees.

Rag paper

All paper before 1800 was made by hand. Rag paper was the first paper used by the Europeans, made of silks, cotton, and flannels.

Laid paper

Laid paper is made on a mould, which consists of a rectangular frame to which is attached a fine mesh of wires parallel to the long sides of the mold.

These fine wires are crossed by thicker wires, chain lines, that run parallel to the short sides of the mold

The wire lines (laid lines) and chain lines can be seen when the paper is held up to the light

Chain and wire lines

• During the papermaking process, after the water

  with suspended paper fibers had been evenly

  distributed over the wire mesh of the mould, the

  mould would then be inverted over a piece of felt

  to deposit the new and very delicate piece of

  paper there. This resulted in the paper having

  two sides, a mould side, which had been next to

  the wire mesh, and a felt side.

• Mould and felt sides can sometimes be

  determined by examining the paper closely, with

  the mould side carrying the impression of the

  wire and chain lines and the felt side being

  smoother.

What is paper format?

The number of folds needed to make pages that go in a book

Why is paper format important?

Because printers don’t print just one page at a time; they print on several pages at once and then fold each sheet into a specified order

Folio

When two leaves (four pages when printed on both sides) were printed on a sheet
so that it could be folded once, collated with other folded sheets and bound

Quarto

When four leaves (eight pages) were printed on the same size sheet, which would later be folded twice

Octavo

A sheet with eight leaves printed on it.

Signatures

• Each time a printer used a new piece of paper, he or she signed it with a printed signature in the lower part of the page. These signatures typically ran from A-Z, but omitting J, V, and M.

• Signatures are counted using formulas...

Folio

When just two pages are printed side-by-side on both sides of a sheet which is later folded once, and then cut, resulting in two leaves, four pages, the book comprised of gatherings of these leaves is called a “folio” (which is written as 2° for short, or sometimes as “fo”).

Quarto

In this instance, each page of the book will be half the size of the sheets used in printing. And where sheets have been printed with the text of four pages per side, and then folded twice, a book has the format “quarto”, 4to or 4°. This sheet, folded one extra time, results in four leaves a quarter of the size of the original sheet.

Most common book formats

Folio and quarto

Watermark locations

• Folio

• Quarto

• Octavo

Broadsheet/broadside

A broadside is a large sheet with only one side printed; a
“broadsheet” (“1o”) might be printed on whole sheets, which
would produce horizontal chainlines with both a watermark and
(if present) a countermark on each sheet. If printed “two-up”
or two-at-a-time on sheets of large stock and cut in half, the
chain lines of the broadsheet would run vertically and some
sheets would have a watermark in their middle, and others
would have the countermark in the middle, but they would not
have been folded and sewn, though they might have been
folded for storage (with no sewing holes, to distinguish them
from folded loose sheets from a folio edition that was broken
up)

Folio watermark placement

Quarto

Printed four leaves at a time, folded in the middle, turned, and folded again.
A quarto format book’s chainlines will be horizontal and half of the watermark and countermark will emerge roughly half-way down the page in the “gutter” produced by the binding

Octavo

Usually printed eight leaves at a time, folded, turned, folded,
turned again, and refolded. Such a “common octavo” gathering must be cut on the top and fore-edge before the gathering can be opened for reading. An octavo format book’s chainlines will be
vertical like a folio’s, but the watermark will not fall in the center, but rather a quarter of it will occur
in a corner of the sheet.

• An octavo has 8 leaves (16 pages); watermarks may appear in 8 different locations depending on the pattern...

Duodecimo

Printed twelve leaves at a time, and it can be cut and folded
in six different patterns depending on which produced the most finished leaves in the fewest runs
through the press (Gaskell 96-101, Fig. 54-59). Watermarks will be cut in half either on the fore-edge,
at the top of the leaf, or at the top of the gutter

Sextidecimo

Printed sixteen leaves at a time, and can be imposed at
least four different typical ways depending on whether it will be cut on the center line or 1/3 and 2/3, or
cut once, twice or three times (Gaskell 102-5, Fig. 60-63). The resulting book leaves will have the
following chainline-watermark combinations: horizontal and quartered marks at the upper fore-edge
corner (“sixteens”); vertical with the whole mark on one page like a folio but the mark will be nearly as
large as the text block; vertical with half the watermark on the gutter like a quarto but again the mark’s
size will nearly match the text block; horizontal and quartered on the upper corner of the fore-edge like
an octavo, but double-folding of many gatherings should be detectable by their producing eight
conjoined leaves alternating with four-leaf groups (“eights and fours”).

Chain lines vs. wire lines

The thick lines are referred to as the "chain line" and the thin lines the "wire line."

Woodcut

A relief printing in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges.

The areas to show “white” are cut away with a knife or chisel, leaving the characters or image to show in “black” at the original surface level.

How to make a woodcut

The block is cut along the grain of the wood (unlike wood
engraving where the block is cut in the end-grain). The surface is
covered with ink by rolling over the surface with an ink-covered
roller (brayer), leaving ink upon the flat surface but not in the
non-printing areas — the result is a marriage between text and illustration never seen before.

What is significant about woodcuts?

Woodcuts were used extensively in the hand-press period, and
represent the first major departure from medieval illustrations
found in manuscript codices, etc.

William Caxton (1420-1491)

• The first English person to work as a printer and the first to introduce a printing press into England

• First English retailer of printed books

• Started the first printing shop in England at Westminster Abbey

• Credited with creating The Canterbury Tales, and Le Morte d’Arthur

• Wanted to produce works for the laity, not the aristocracy

• Printed mainly in English, to stay true to his native language and to avoid competing with Latin books

• His English printed books tried to establish that English was a nationwide standard

Sammelbands

Multiple works printed in one volume

Books were rarely bound until the 18th century, so they were just…

sheets of paper. The buyer paid for binding and it was expensive

Do many Sammelbandes exist today?

No

Did single volume books sell better or worse than multivolume ones?

Better

What was the first book Caxton produced?

The Recuyell of the Histories of Troy, which he translated into English — it was the first book to ever be printed in English.

It was a collection of stories based on the Trojan Wars, that was appealing to his readers due to a new typeface he created.

The Canterbury Tales

It’s argued it was from 1476

Anton Koberger

• From Nuremberg

• Produced the Nuremberg Chronicle, a picture book chronicling the history of the world

• It was produced both on vellum and on paper in German and Latin

Sections of the Nuremberg Chronicle

The Liber Chronicarum or Nuremberg
Chronicle, as it is also known, is a universal
history of the Christian world from the
beginning of times to the early 1490s,
written in Latin, dividing earthly history into
six ages:
 the First Age of the World from the Creation to
the Deluge
 the Second Age from the Deluge to the Birth of
Abraham
 the Third Age from the Birth of Abraham to the
Kingdom of David
 the Fourth Age from the beginning of the
Kingdom of David to the Babylonian Captivity
 the Fifth Age from the Babylonian Captivity to
the Birth of Christ
 the Sixth (and longest) Age from the Birth of Christ to 1490s

Accomplishments of the Nuremberg Chronicle

The Nuremberg Chronicle was a complicated endeavor that demanded
substantial planning, and one of the finest illustrated books of the
fifteenth century (incunabula) with illustrations of biblical scenes,
major cities, characters from myths and fables, the genealogical tables
of emperors (see fig. 2), kings and popes as well as maps.

It was the most heavily illustrated book of the entire period.

Liber Chronicarum

The Nuremberg Chronicle

Luremberg Chronicle illustrations and design

• Woodblock subjects were sketched at first, then text was inscribed to fit within the remaining page spaces

• 1,804 illustrations made from 652 woodblocks

• Printed on vellum and paper, and typeset in Latin and German

• 1,300 Latin and 600 German copies were made

• Around 1200 survive

Nicolas Jenson

Created Roman type, the first big style after Gutenberg’s blackletter

• Clear letters based on straight lines

• Lighter and less blocky

• “Humanist” style

• Also known as Venetian

Big changes on the way

• Ethics, poetry, history, rhetoric,

  grammar take on great importance

• So do acquiring skills to be a good

  citizen

• Not un-Christian but Christian humanism

• Higher literacy rates occur

• Vernacular literary culture

• The developments of Republics with

  Rome as a model

The growth of labor and industry

• Each printing occupation worked separately, each belonging to their own guild

• Printing brought them together

• Book fairs

• Interactions between type founders, correctors, translators, copy editors, illustrators or print dealers, indexers, and others who are engaged in editorial work

• Sparked creativity and changed the relationship between intellectuals

  • Collaborations include:
     priests, abbots, and printers
     astronomers and engravers
     physicians and painters
     rich merchants and local scholars

Science changes

• Scientific research is more collaborative

• Results and discoveries were published quickly

• Peer review spread the development of ideas

• Sharing and widespread availability of information now lead to new scientific discoveries

• Printers becoming better educated to suit the needs of their business

• No more scribal errors, instead identical copies can now be made

• Scientific methods for cataloguing and indexing research now become standard

Benefits of the printing press

• An attempt to standardized text, which meant spelling and grammar, fewer mistakes, and the writings of laws

• Alphabetical order

• Indexes

• Books were cheaper

• Merchants looked for interesting topics

• Paid writers

• Varieties of books circulated

• Knowledge is much more easily transported due to so many printed copies

• New emphasis put on learning

• Transition from accepted beliefs to learned ones

• Indexing and scientific cataloging develop

• Ancient texts become available for reading

• Printing was profitable

• International exchange of information

Problems with the printing press

• Accelerates the growing divide between Protestants and Catholics

• Rome censored writers and scared Catholic authors from publishing

• People were reading, hearing, and wearing the same things, causing vernaculars to develop

• Issues of copyright and plagiarism

• Governments began to control printers, restricting the right to print

• Special rights to certain publishers to print books

Aldo Manuzio/Auldus Manutius; the Aldine Press (1495-1588)

• Most significant press in European history

• Aldus Manutius was the first major printer to insist on scholarly editing and produce portable books for scholars

• Gathered an army of Greek scholars

• Founded an academy of Hellenists called the New Academy

• Wanted to make Greek and Roman classics available in print

• Made Venice a printing center

• The Aldine Press was the first in the

  world to issue pocket-sized editions of

  books, printed in octavo format.

  This new format was revolutionary as it

  enabled readers to access books more

  easily, rather than having to learn

  texts by heart.

• The first ever book issued in the

  octavo format was this edition of the

  works of Virgil, printed in 1501.

Italics

Created by Aldus Manutius, they were a way to fit more words onto a page to save money — today, we use them as design detail or for emphasis

Keys to early english printing processes

1. The writer/collaborator produces the manuscript using
   paper and pen.
   2. The writer then submits the manuscript to the Stationers’
   Company, which either approves or censors it.
   3. The printer purchases the manuscript, hires workers and
   gets the supplies (ink/paper/bindings).
   1. Typesetters must read the manuscript clearly and
   set the type, then lock it up in the press (composing
   stick/chase), then ink the presses prior to the start of
   printing.
   4. Investors (called publishers) pay the printers for
   production and distribution to booksellers (warehousing).
   5. Booksellers then sell the books at markets, fairs, and in
   catalogs.
   6. Writers/collaborators ultimately lose all rights to their
   manuscripts!!!

Overall takeaways — why and how did the printing press and movable type change everything?

• Created an early “global” information network

• Carried with it a tremendous amount of learning in the Renaissance

• Helped Martin Luther spread Protestantism—which becomes a global
  phenomenon

• Facilitates an explosion of scientific publishing and learning

• Gives voices to those who did have one before

• Inspires revolution

• Improves literacy

• Fosters silent reading

• Steals jobs from scribes!