The first printing appeared in China in the 9th century. Printing was done using special engraving boards onto which ink was applied. A sheet of paper was pressed to the board, the letters were imprinted, thus forming printed text.
Invention of printing
Further development and improvement of printing took place in Medieval Europe. At the end of the 14th century European states experienced the dawn of trade, production became manufacturing. Handwritten editions of books could no longer satisfy all the needs of society.
The invention of printing using metal type is the merit of the famous German jeweler Johannes Guttenberg. It was he who developed the idea of the first printing press.
At first, Guttenberg kept his development a secret because it might anger the Catholic Church. But already in 1446, the first printed book, “The Trojan Chronicle,” saw the world.
The first Russian book printer was Ivan Fedorov. It was he who published the first printed book on the territory of the Russian state - “Apostle”.
First printed books
Previously, book printing was focused on the spiritual enlightenment of society. The first printed books were predominantly theological and philosophical character. At that time, society was dominated by the church, and the first book publishers did not want to incur the oppression of the Roman clergy.
Thus, one of Gutenberg’s first books, Donatus, was a manual for students to study the Latin language, in which services were carried out in medieval churches. With the beginning of the Renaissance, a printing boom took place in the first printing houses: taking advantage of the spiritual revival of society, book publishers tried to print all the books that had previously been created by man.
The world saw the printed works of ancient Greek and Roman thinkers - “Geography” by Strabo, “History” by Pliny, “The Beginning of Geometry” by Euclid. In 1493, the “Book of Chronicles” by the famous German physician G. Schedel was published in Nuremberg, which broke the record for the number of copies published - about 1000.
The impact of the first printed books on society
Printed books brought about a spiritual revolution in society. Before the era of printing, many things were inaccessible to people. literary works, because most books in handwritten form were kept in monasteries and churches. With the development and establishment of printing, books became accessible to almost every person.
This was the decisive factor in the advent of the Age of Enlightenment. One of the first printed books was the Bible. The society first became acquainted with the biblical canons not from the sermons of clergy, as was the case previously, but from the original text.
This provoked the emergence of new views on the church and its role in public life. It was at this time that the first Protestant movements began to appear, which broke away from Catholicism due to ideological differences.
Johannes Gutenberg is one of the most famous personalities in history. As of the mid-20th century, the number of works on the topic of “Gutenberg studies” exceeded several thousand titles, after which thousands more appeared.
Gutenberg was not the inventor of printing. He was an innovator, the creator of a unique machine with movable type. In this capacity he went down in history.
Typography before Gutenberg
It is known that book printing was invented at least twice. It was invented by the ancient Chinese in the first millennium. According to European sources, this happened in the 6th century, according to Chinese - in the tenth. It is reliably known that the first printed text precisely dated in time is the Diamond Sutra, and it appeared in 868.
Piece printing, which could be used to reproduce various designs or texts, was used in China during the Han era. In the 10th century, printing took place primarily on paper. In those years, several thousand sutras were printed, and the works of Confucius and his students were published. An experienced printer created about 2,000 double pages per working day.
The second time printing appeared several centuries later in Europe. The woodcut method was also used here - obtaining imprinted images from wooden boards. This method has been known in Europe since the beginning of the 14th century.
Biography of Gutenberg
Despite the abundance modern works, there is no sufficiently complete and coherent biography of the book printer. During his lifetime he was not known enough to be listed in official sources. Even the date of birth is unknown - they call different dates between 1395 and 1400.
Gutenberg was a jeweler by profession. He polished semi-precious stones, made mirrors, and trained young jewelers. In order to teach beginners, he himself had to receive the title of master and prove his professional skills, but where he himself studied is unknown.
In parallel with his main activity, he experimented in the field of printing. Eyewitnesses claimed that a certain prototype of a printing press was in his workshop already in 1438-39.
Gutenberg's printing press
Most researchers agree that Gutenberg developed the first printing press by 1440. The essence of the invention was as follows: he made special convex metal letters. The letters were "movable", making Gutenberg the creator of the first European typeface. They were made in mirror form in such a way that the text remained on the paper in a normal format.
Gutenberg's printing press is a fairly large structure, which was attached to the ceiling and floor with the help of special beams. The main part of the machine is a heavy press with a lever. Below it was a perfectly flat table, a thaler, which, if necessary, could be pulled out from under the press.
Many researchers believe that the basis for the invention of Gutenberg's printing press was an ordinary wine press, which had a similar mechanism.
Letters for the machine were made as follows:
- A letter in an inverted format was engraved on one end of a metal rod of a given diameter.
- The rod was lowered into the softened copper, and an imprint of the letter remained in the copper.
- This impression served as a matrix for the type cast in lead.
To optimize the work, the inventor created a special tool that makes it easier to cast letters. This tool is a special groove. On one side, a matrix is inserted into the gutter, and on the other side, molten lead is poured. After this, the chute opens and the finished type is removed from it. With this manufacturing method, one matrix was used to create any number of letters.
- Next, the typesetter creates a page layout from individual letters.
- Letters in the required sequence were inserted into a special form, forming lines.
- The result was a mirror image of the page.
- After this, the form was smeared with special printing ink and printing began.
- Using a press, text was transferred from a printing plate to paper or similar material.
- A set of pages was placed on the table. The number of pages printed at once depended on the size of each; a maximum of 32 sheets could be laid out.
Video about the invention of the Gutenberg printing press
Gutenberg did not have the money to organize his own printing house, so he entered into a partnership with a moneylender from Mainz, Johann Fust. Fust gave money to open a printing house and undertook an agreement to pay a certain amount annually for operating expenses. The partnership was unsuccessful. Fust did not provide any additional amounts, and when Gutenberg did not pay the interest under the agreement, he went to court and sued the printing house. This made Fust one of the first European book printers and gave rise to the German legend that he was the inventor and first printer.
The invention of the printing press was attributed to several other pioneer printers from different countries. But, comparing known data and eyewitness accounts, scientists came to the conclusion that Johannes Gutenberg was the first.
Gutenberg Bible
One of the first books published after the invention of the Gutenberg printing press was a 42-line copy of the Bible, popularly called the Gutenberg Bible.
When creating this book on the first printing press, several related improvements and inventions were made:
- The standard printing ink used in woodcut printing could not be used in printing with movable metal type. Gutenberg developed his own paint composition, adding parts of sulfur, copper and lead. Thanks to this, the seal has not lost its clarity and shine even after half a millennium.
- Line spacing. The Gutenberg Bible originally had 40 lines on each page. Then the inventor had to save money, and he increased the number of lines to 42. In order to stay within the given limits and not go beyond the margins, he had to reduce the line spacing. IN scientific circles the book is called 42-line.
- Two-color printing. Initially, the inventor passed the sheets through the press twice. For the first time, the main text of the book was printed using standard black printing ink, and the second time, the headings were printed in red ink. Several volumes were created in this manner, after which Gutenberg abandoned the practice. Later he left free space for headings, drop caps, footers, after which they were filled in manually.
Modern scholars have calculated that the circulation of this book was about 180 copies, of which 45 were “elite” ones, printed on parchment. The rest are published on first-class Italian paper.
In the process of working on the edition, Gutenberg workers cast about one hundred thousand letters in Gothic font.
Further work with the machine
In addition to the 42-line Bible, which several centuries later was called the Mazarin Bible, Johannes Gutenberg printed several other books on the first printing press. Among them is another Bible, published in 36 lines, various papal indulgences and a textbook on Latin grammar.
A few years later, the moneylender Fust sued Gutenberg’s printing press, photos of which are posted on the Internet. After this, the printer built a second press and published several more books.
The significance of Gutenberg's invention
The invention of the printing press had a huge resonance in the world:
- In the decades after Gutenberg invented the printing press, similar devices appeared in other European countries. By the end of the 15th century, in Germany alone there were more than 50 printing houses, where about two hundred professional printers worked, and more than 30 thousand different books were published throughout Europe.
- Scientists believe that it was the invention of movable type and the printing press that gave impetus to the Renaissance: with the development of printing, literacy also increased. In the 16th century, Martin Luther published half a million copies of his own translation of the Bible, with the expectation that everyone could read the book and draw their own conclusions.
- Invention of the machine and further development Printing led to the development of printed pamphlets, leaflets, daily newspapers, and ultimately to the development of the modern press.
Video of Gutenberg's printing press in action
Until the 18th century, the printing press remained virtually unchanged. Gradually, the circulation of books increased, their production became cheaper, and the printed word became available to everyone.
What role do you think Gutenberg's printing press played in history? Share your opinion on
An invention without which it is difficult to imagine universal literacy of the population today is the printing press. There is no doubt that this car changed the world for the better. But when did it appear in our everyday life and what is its history?
Today scientific world is of the opinion that the first printing press was built by a German entrepreneur. However, there is reliable evidence that similar devices were used by people much earlier. Residents also put seals on clay using paint and a stamp. In the first century AD, fabrics decorated with patterns were common in Asia and Europe. During times ancient culture stamps were placed on papyrus, and the Chinese had paper on which prayers were printed using wooden templates as early as the second century AD.
In Europe, publishing books was the province of monasteries. At first they were copied by hand by the monks. Then they made a page template and printed it, but this process was long, and a new template was needed for a new book.
Almost immediately, carved boards were replaced by metal type, which applied ink to oil based using a press. It is believed that the technique of loose type was first used by Gutenberg (1436). It is his signature that adorns the most ancient printing press. However, the French and Dutch dispute this fact, claiming that it was their compatriots who invented such an important machine.
So, when asked who invented the printing press, most of our contemporaries will answer that it was Johannes Guttenberg. He was born in Mainz into a family from an ancient noble family Gonzfleishey. It is not known for certain why he left hometown, took up a craft and took his mother’s surname. However, in Strasbourg he made the main invention of the century.
Machine device
Gutenberg hid how his printing press worked. However, today it can be argued that at first it was made of wood. There is news that his first font existed back in the sixteenth century. Each letter had a hole through which a rope was threaded, connecting the typed lines. But wood is not a good enough material for such a thing. The letters swelled or dried out over time, making the printed text uneven. Therefore, Guttenberg began to cut a stamp from lead or tin, and then cast the letters - it turned out much easier and faster. The printing press actually acquired its modern appearance.
The book printing machine worked like this: initially, letters were made in mirror form. By hitting them with a hammer, the master received impressions on a copper plate. This is how the required number of letters were made, which were used many times. Then words and lines were put together from them. Gutenberg's first products were Donatus's grammar (thirteen editions) and calendars. Having gotten the hang of it, he ventured into a more complex task: the first printed Bible had 1,286 pages and 3,400,000 characters. The publication was colorful, with pictures, and hand-drawn by artists.
The Gutenberg case continued. In Rus', such a machine appeared in 1563, when, on the orders of Ivan the Terrible, Fedorov built his machine.
According to UNESCO, today about 4 billion inhabitants of our planet are literate, that is, able to read and write at least one language. On average, one reader “swallows” about 20 pages of printed text per day. Imagine modern society It is impossible to live without books, and yet for most of its history, humanity managed without them.
However, the amount of knowledge accumulated by people became larger and larger every year and decade. In order to transmit information to future generations, it was necessary to record it on a reliable medium. As such a carrier in different times were used different materials. Rock inscriptions, baked clay tablets of Babylon, Egyptian papyri, Greek wax tablets, handwritten codices on parchment and paper - all of them were the predecessors of printed books.
Printing (from the Greek polys “many” and grapho “I write”) is the reproduction of text or drawing by repeatedly transferring paint to paper from a ready-made printing plate. Modern meaning This term implies the industrial reproduction of printed products, not only books, but also newspapers and magazines, business, and packaging. However, in the Middle Ages, people needed books. The work of a copyist took a lot of time (for example, one copy of the Gospel in Rus' was copied in about six months). For this reason, books were very expensive; they were purchased mainly by rich people, monasteries and universities. Therefore, like any other labor-intensive process, the creation of books sooner or later had to be mechanized.
Woodcut board. Tibet. XVII-XVIII centuries
C. Mills. Young Benjamin Franklin masters printing. 1914
Of course, book printing did not arise out of nowhere; its inventors used many technological solutions that already existed by that time. Carved signet stamps, which make it possible to imprint relief designs on soft materials (clay, wax, etc.), have been used by people since ancient times. For example, the signets of the Mohenjo-Daro civilization date back to the 3rd millennium BC. e. In Babylon and Assyria, cylinder signets were used and rolled over the surface.
Another component of book printing, the process of ink transfer, has also been known to mankind for a long time. First, the technology of printing patterns on fabric arose: a pattern cut out on a smoothly planed wooden plate was covered with paint and then pressed onto a tightly stretched piece of fabric. This technology was used back in Ancient Egypt.
Traditionally, China is considered the birthplace of printing, although the oldest printed texts discovered in China, Japan and Korea date back to approximately the same time in the mid-8th century. The technology for their production differed from modern ones and used the principle of woodcut (from the Greek xylon “wood”). The original text or drawing, made in ink on paper, was ground onto the smooth surface of the board. The engraver cut wood around the strokes of the resulting mirror image. The form was then covered with paint, which only applied to the protruding parts, pressed tightly to a sheet of paper, and a straight image remained on it. However, this method was used to print mainly engravings and small texts. The first accurately dated major printed text is a Chinese woodcut copy of the Buddhist Diamond Sutra, published in 868.
Real book printing began in China only in the middle of the 11th century, when the blacksmith Bi Sheng invented and put into practice movable type. As the Chinese statesman Shen Ko wrote in his treatise “Notes on the Stream of Dreams,” Bi Sheng carved signs on soft clay and burned them on fire, with each hieroglyph forming a separate seal. An iron board covered with a mixture of pine resin, wax and paper ash, with a frame to separate the lines, was filled with seals placed in a row. After the process was completed, the board was heated, and the letters themselves fell out of the frame, ready for new use. Bi Sheng's clay type was soon replaced by wooden and then metal type; the principle of printing from typesetting turned out to be very fruitful.
"Diamond Sutra" 868
In Europe, the woodblock printing method was mastered in the 13th century. As in China, at first they used it to print mainly engravings and small texts, then they also mastered books, in which, however, there were more drawings than text. A striking example Such a publication was the so-called Biblia pauperum (“Poor Man’s Bible”), an anthology of biblical texts illustrated in the manner of modern comics. Thus, in Europe XIII-XV centuries. Two types of book production coexisted: parchment manuscripts for religious and university literature and paper woodcuts for the poorly educated common people.
In 1450, the German jeweler Johannes Gutenberg entered into an agreement with the moneylender Fust to obtain a loan to organize a printing house. The printing press he invented combined two already known principles: typesetting and printing. The engraver made a punch (a metal block with a mirror image of letters on the end), the punch pressed out a matrix in a plate of soft metal, and from the matrices inserted into a special mold, any required quantity liter. Gutenberg fonts contained very large number(up to 300) different characters, such an abundance was necessary in order to imitate the appearance of a handwritten book.
Johannes Gutenberg examines the first printing press. 19th century engraving
Typesetting cash register with letters.
The printing press was a manual press, similar to a wine press, which connected two horizontal planes using a pressure screw: a typesetting board with letters was placed on one, and a slightly moistened sheet of paper was pressed against the other. The letters were covered with printing ink made from a mixture of soot and linseed oil. The design of the machine turned out to be so successful that it remained virtually unchanged for three centuries.
In six years, Gutenberg, working almost without assistants, cast no less than five different types, printed the Latin grammar of Aelius Donatus, several papal indulgences and two versions of the Bible. Wanting to defer loan payments until the enterprise began to generate income, Gutenberg refused to pay interest to Fust. The moneylender sued, by court decision the printing house was transferred to him, and Gutenberg was forced to start the business from scratch. However, it was the trial transcript found in late XIX century, put an end to the question of the authorship of the invention of the printing press; before that, its creation was attributed to the German Mentelin, the Italian Castaldi and even Fust.
The official history of book printing in Rus' began in 1553, when the first state printing house was opened in Moscow by order of Tsar Ivan the Terrible. During the 1550s it published a number of "anonymous" (non-imprint) books. Historians suggest that deacon Ivan Fedorov, known as the Russian pioneer printer, worked in the printing house from the very beginning. The first printed book in which the name of Fedorov and Peter Mstislavets, who helped him, is indicated was the Apostle, work on which was carried out, as indicated in the afterword, from April 1563 to March 1564. The following year, his second book, The Book of Hours, was published in Fedorov’s printing house.
Gutenberg's printing press.
TO mid-16th century II century There was a need not only for more books, but also for the rapid production of newspapers and magazines in large circulations. A manual printing press could not satisfy these requirements. The printing machine invented by Friedrich König helped radically improve the printing process. Initially, in a design known as the "Zul press", only the process of applying ink to the printing plate was mechanized. In 1810 Koenig replaced the flat pressure plate with a rotating cylinder - this was a decisive step towards creating a high-speed printing machine. Six years later, a double-sided printing machine was created.
Although the flatbed printing press was a truly revolutionary invention, it still had serious disadvantages. Its printing form performed reciprocating movements, significantly complicating the mechanism, while the reverse motion was idle. In 1848, Richard Howe and Augustus Applegate successfully applied the rotary (i.e., based on the rotation of the device) principle for printing needs, which was successfully used for printing designs on fabric. The most difficult thing was to secure the printing form on the cylindrical drum so that the letters did not fall out when it rotated. The first rotary press installed in the printing house of the Times newspaper could make up to 10 thousand impressions per hour.
Improvements in the printing process continued throughout the 20th century. Already in its first decade, first two-color and then multi-color rotary machines appeared. In 1914, the production of machines for intaglio printing was mastered (their printing elements are recessed in relation to the whitespace), and six years later for flat or offset printing (the printing and whitespace elements are located in the same plane and differ in physical and chemical properties, with In this case, the ink only lingers on the printers). Nowadays, all printing operations are automated and controlled using computers. There has long been no shortage of printed paper books, but now they are competing with electronic books.
With the invention of offset printing, the printing cycle accelerated significantly.
Typography, that is, the reproduction of texts and illustrations by pressing paper or other material onto an inked printing plate, replaced the slow and labor-intensive process of copying books by hand. Book printing first spread in China and Korea. Due to the development of culture Ancient China, with the growth of cities, the development of crafts, trade, literature, and art in them, bookmaking reached significant development here.
In the 9th century. n. e. Printing from printing boards began in China. Texts or illustrations to be reproduced were drawn on wooden boards, and then the places that were not to be printed were deepened with a cutting tool.
The relief image on the board was covered with paint, after which a sheet of paper was pressed to the board, on which an impression was made - an engraving.
In China, a method was also invented for making printing forms from ready-made relief elements, i.e., a set of movable characters. According to the information of the Chinese author Shen-Guo, who lived in the 11th century, this invention was made by the blacksmith Bi-Sheng (Pi-Sheng), who made letters or drawings from clay and fired them. These clay movable types were used to type the printed text.
Typesetting printing from China was transferred to Korea, where it was further improved. In the 13th century Instead of clay ones, letters cast in bronze were introduced. Books printed using bronze type in Korea in the 15th century have survived to this day. Printing from typefaces was also used in Japan and Central Asia. Western Europe Book printing arose at the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th centuries. During this period, the foundations of world trade were laid, the transition from craft to manufacture, and the old, handwritten method of reproducing books could no longer satisfy the growing needs. It is being replaced by printing. First, in Europe, a method of printing from boards appeared on which images and text were drawn. A number of books were printed in this way, playing cards, calendars, etc. In the middle of the 15th century. printing from boards becomes insufficient to meet the needs of society and is economically unprofitable and is being replaced by printing from movable type.
The inventor of printing with movable type in Europe was the German Johannes Gutenberg (1400 - 1468). It was not possible to accurately establish the time of printing the first book using type, and the conventional date for the beginning of European book printing using this method is considered to be 1440. Johann Gutenberg used metal type.
First, a matrix was made by pressing letter-shaped indentations into soft metal. Then lead alloy was poured into it and the required number of letters was made. The type letters were arranged in a systematic order in typesetting boxes, from where they were taken out for typing.
Manual printing presses were created for printing. The printing press was a manual press where two horizontal planes were connected: typeface was installed on one plane, and paper was pressed against the other. The matrix was first coated with a mixture of soot and linseed oil. This machine produced no more than 100 prints per hour. Movable type printing quickly spread throughout Europe, although Gutenberg and the entrepreneur Fust, who provided him with financial assistance, tried to keep the invention a secret. In the Czech Republic, the first book, “The Trojan Chronicle,” was printed by an unknown printer already in 1468. From 1440 to 1500, i.e., over 60 years of using this method, over 30 thousand book titles were printed. The circulation of each book reached approximately 300 copies. These books were called "incunabula".
Nuremberg Chronicle. Incunabula ed. 1493
The printing of books in Old Church Slavonic began at the end of the 15th century. The Belarusian printer Georgy (Francis) Skorina achieved great success. who printed books in Prague in 1517-1519. and Vilna in 1525
Francis Skaryna, 1517
In the Moscow state, book printing arose in the middle of the 16th century. The founder of book printing in Rus' was Ivan Fedorov.
The first dated book “Apostle”, printed at the Moscow Printing House (the first Moscow printing house), was published in 1564. The printers were Ivan Fedorov and his assistant Pyotr Mstislavets.
Ivan Fedorov independently developed the process of book printing, produced the Old Church Slavonic font, and achieved exceptional high quality book printing. However, persecution from the clergy, who saw heresy in the printing of books, as well as from copyists of books, forced the pioneer printer to leave Moscow and go first to Belarus, and then to Ukraine, where he continued to print books. However, much suggests that book printing appeared in Rus' before 1564. Six books have come down to us, on which neither the date of publication, nor the name of the printer, nor the place of printing are indicated. Their analysis shows that they were printed at least 10 years before the Apostle. The earliest of these books dates back to 1553.
"Geometry Slavonic Land Measurement" - the first book typed in civil font
In the 17th century Several printing houses were already operating in Russia, but until the end of the 18th century. The printing technique did not undergo significant changes, only the font changed: Peter I introduced a civil font instead of Old Slavonic.