The West and Gutenberg
Johannes Gensfleisch
zum Gutenberg
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The fifteenth century was the century of navigators and explorers (Christopher Columbus, Henry the navigator), but it also knew another great epic, that of printing. If Gensfleisch zum Johannes Gutenberg may not be historically regarded as the inventor of printing, he had the merit of having made the synthesis of several techniques, such as the creation of an alloy instead of wood for manufacturing movable characters and multiplied by casting, the development of the screw press and fat-based linseed oil ink and soot softwood.
Gutenberg was a silversmith and due to his know-how and genius, he completed the impression of a magnificent bible of 1284 pages laid out on two columns and forty-two lines per column (hence its name: The Bible of 42 lines). Two hundred copies were drawn on paper and vellum. The bible is the first book printed in Europe; it is a true work of art.
Gutenberg only managed to solve the myriad technical problems that aroused, and conceived the design tools that were easily usable. The production processes and presses immediately reached the almost perfection, only minor improvements were made during the 350 years that followed this innovation.
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Born in Mayence before 1400, Gutenberg was installed in Strasbourg in 1438; he led in secret research on the production of movable metal characters more efficient than those made out of wood. As silversmith, he was familiar with the technique of punches, dies, molds and metal alloys. Back in 1448 in Mayence, he perfected his invention. He develops the technology to take each letter of the alphabet on a tiny piece of metal. His first cast included 270 different characters. These characters could be assembled by hand in endless combinations of words and pages ready to be printed immediately and especially quickly reusable.
The manufacture of a character began with the relief engraver of a letter at the top of a hard punch. It used to hit a metal matrix which was more tender, which then was placed in a mold. A fusible metal at low temperature (tin or lead), it was then poured into the mold. Once all the characters were done, they were divided in a wooden case, the upper-case letters in the up-case and lower case letters in the" low case ".
Print shop in Lyon, A. Vérard illumination of the sixteenth century
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Workshop typography (Encyclopedia Diderot&D'Alembert)
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The wooden case (Encyclopedia Diderot&D'Alembert)
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Starting from 1450, Gutenberg indebts himself heavily to continue his work with the banker Johann Fust, but because he should repay him, he had to give him the bibles and some of his material. Fust joined then an employee of Gutenberg, Peter Schoeffer and they published together three books including a collection of psalms which was the first book printed in color and bear the address and the motto of the printer.
In Germany, printing is also expanding very quickly from technology developed by Gutenberg, but the main contribution of this country was undoubtedly the invention of the illustrated book. Printers and engravers united their talents to produce books where text and illustrations come together.
It is in Venice that Conrad Sweynheyn and Arnold Pannartz published a set of books using in Roman primitive character, but still very strong marked by the German Gothic. It was in Rome in 1467 that they drew new characters, near to the Italian calligraphy and they edited around forty books.
Nicolas Jenson created between 1470 and 1480 in Venice, the most beautiful books printed since Gutenberg and three alphabets, Roman, Gothic and Greek that are among the major works of the Italian Renaissance. Since then, the Roman character prevails.
The appearance of the pocket book is due to Alde Manuce who was the first printer to free itself entirely from the manuscript book by publishing books in small format and printed copies large enough to meet European demand. His roman and italics characters made further progress in the emerging typography. Between 1495 and 1496, he published a booklet of 60 pages, The Dialog of Aetna by Pietro Bembo with a character designed by Griffo which is considered the first truly modern character. Manuce asked also Griffo to draw a cursive, italic, which could increase the number of words per page, the first example is a Virgil of 1501.
The italics imposed then as distinctive sign for the humanistic book.
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Ackermann aus Boehmen de Johannes von Saaz (1463) (National Library, Paris) Illustrated book: the image was engraved in relief on wood, then colored with watercolor
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