Printing press: history, technology, and cultural impact

Economic conditions and intellectual climate

The rapid economic and socio-cultural development at the end of the Middle Ages provided favorable conditions for Gutenberg's invention: The entrepreneurial spirit of early capitalism promoted economic thinking in business life and encouraged the rationalization of the traditionally artisanal mode of production. The demand for books increased due to the growing need for education and the increasing spread of the ability to read in middle-class circles to such an extent that the traditional, time-consuming method of copying by hand could no longer meet the demand. In this situation, the decentralized state of the late medieval world opened up a certain amount of room to advance individual solutions without intervention from political and religious authorities.

Technical factors

At the same time, the development of a number of medieval products and technical processes had progressed to the point where their use for printing purposes became potentially interesting. Gutenberg's merit is to have recognized these widely scattered products and processes in their value for letterpress printing, to have brought them together into a complete and functioning printing system, and to have perfected them through a number of his own fundamental inventions and innovations:

The screw press allows direct pressure to be applied to a flat surface. Introduced by the Romans in the 1st century AD, it already had a long history of diversification in Gutenberg's time: As a winepress, it was common in both Mediterranean and medieval agriculture for extracting juice from grapevines and oil from olive pits and other oil seeds. Very early on, screw presses were also used in the urban textile trade as cloth presses. Gutenberg may also have been inspired by the paper presses that became widespread in the German lands from the late 14th century onwards and worked on the same mechanical principle.

By adopting the basic design for his printing press, Gutenberg was able to mechanize the printing process, a crucial prerequisite for the mass production of printed works. However, printing placed different demands on the machine than pressing out. Gutenberg adapted the design so that the platen exerted a pressure on the paper that was both uniform and springy. To speed up the whole process, he introduced a flat and movable lower table on which the sheets could be changed quickly.

The idea of movable type was not entirely new in the 15th century; sporadic references to knowledge of the typographic principle have appeared in Europe since the 12th century at the latest. Medieval examples of typographic text production, i.e. the continuous reuse of letters to create an entire text, range from Germany (Prüfeningen consecration inscription) to Italy (Pilgrim II's altarpiece) and England (letter bricks). However, the practical suitability of the various techniques (stamps, hallmarks and the stringing together of individual letters) was too limited to become widely accepted.

Gutenberg succeeded in decisively improving the printing process by establishing typesetting and printing as two separate work steps. A goldsmith by trade, he cast his letter metal from a lead alloy that proved so suitable for letterpress printing that it is still used today. The mass production of metal letters was made possible by his key invention of a special hand-casting instrument that was excellently suited for the rapid reproduction of identical types. The use of the Latin alphabet was an enormous advantage, as it allowed the typesetter to reproduce any text using only about two dozen letters and various punctuation marks.

Another important factor that had a favourable effect on the emergence and spread of printing was the codex format in which books had been published since Roman times. In a centuries-long process that is considered the most significant development in the history of the book before the invention of printing itself, the codex had completely replaced the ancient scroll by the beginning of the Middle Ages (around 500 AD). The codex has considerable practical advantages over the scroll: it is more convenient to read (by turning pages), more compact, less expensive, and above all, unlike the scroll, recto and verso can be used for writing and printing.

A fourth development was the rapid mechanization of medieval papermaking. The introduction of water-powered paper mills, which are securely attested from 1282, enabled European papermakers to greatly expand production, displacing the laborious manual work common in China and the Muslim world. The number of papermaking centres rose steeply in the late 13th century in Italy, where the price of paper fell to one-sixth that of parchment, and fell still further; about a hundred years later the first paper mills also began operating in Germany.

Nevertheless, the final breakthrough of paper as a writing medium seems to have been no less dependent on the rapid spread of printing with movable type. In this context, it is revealing that parchment codices, whose quality as a writing material is considered unsurpassed, still made up a substantial part of Gutenberg's edition of the 42-line Bible. Only after numerous attempts did the Mainzer succeed in overcoming the difficulties that the conventional water-based inks caused by wetting the paper, and in finding a composition for an oil-based printing ink that was suitable for high-quality printing with metal type.