The Press That Changed the World

Imagine a world where every book has to be copied by hand.

Before the 1450s, that was Europe. A book was written out, letter by letter, page by page, by a scribe with a pen. A long book, like a Bible, could take a skilled scribe a year or more. Books were rare and expensive. Most were kept in monasteries, universities and the libraries of the very rich. Most ordinary people never owned one, and could not read.

That was about to change.

The goldsmith

Johannes Gutenberg was born around 1400 in Mainz, a city on the River Rhine in Germany. Little is known for certain about his early life. He trained as a goldsmith and metalworker, and he learned how to cut and cast metal precisely.

In the 1430s, while living in Strasbourg, he was involved in a secret business project. Court records from a lawsuit at the time mention a press, metal pieces and lead, suggesting he was already experimenting with printing.

By around 1448 he was back in Mainz, and working on the idea that would make him famous.

The idea

Printing itself was not new. In China, Korea and elsewhere, people had printed texts for centuries, using carved wooden blocks or movable type made of clay, wood or metal. Korea produced a book printed with movable metal type, the Jikji, in 1377. In Europe, people printed pictures and short texts from carved wooden blocks.

What Gutenberg created was a complete system that made printing fast, accurate and cheap enough to change everything.

First, he made individual letters out of metal, one piece for each letter, which could be arranged into words and lines, and then taken apart and used again. To make thousands of identical letters quickly, he invented a hand mould that allowed a craftsman to cast a new letter in moments.

Second, he developed a metal alloy, mostly of lead, tin and antimony, that melted easily, cooled quickly and was hard enough to print thousands of pages.

Third, he created an oil-based ink, more like varnish, that would stick to metal type. The water-based inks used by scribes simply ran off.

And fourth, he adapted a screw press, like those used for pressing grapes to make wine, to press paper evenly onto the inked type.

The Bible

Gutenberg's most famous work was a Bible, printed in Latin, completed in about 1455.

It had about 1,280 pages, in two volumes, with forty-two lines of text in each column. Historians estimate that around 180 copies were printed, some on paper and some on vellum, made from calfskin. Each page was so carefully set and so evenly printed that it looked as beautiful as the finest handwritten books. Many copies were decorated by hand afterwards with coloured initials and borders.

Today, fewer than fifty copies survive, and only around twenty of them are complete. They are among the most valuable books in the world.

Losing the business

But Gutenberg did not grow rich.

Building his workshop had cost a fortune. He had borrowed large sums from a wealthy businessman called Johann Fust. In 1455, around the time the Bible was finished, Fust took him to court to get his money back. Gutenberg lost. Fust took over much of the equipment and went into business with Peter Schöffer, one of Gutenberg's skilled workers.

Gutenberg seems to have continued printing on a smaller scale. In 1465, the Archbishop of Mainz gave him a title and a yearly allowance of grain, wine and clothing. He died in 1468.

His name does not appear on any book he printed.

The revolution

The new invention spread with astonishing speed. Printers trained in Mainz carried the skills across Europe. By the year 1500, there were printing presses in more than two hundred towns and cities, and historians estimate that millions of copies of books had been printed.

Books became cheaper. More people learned to read. Scientists could share their discoveries accurately, without the copying errors of scribes. New ideas could spread across a continent in months instead of decades. Printing helped make possible the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, the scientific revolution and, much later, newspapers and mass education.

Many historians consider it one of the most important inventions in human history.

Want to read more?

John Man's The Gutenberg Revolution is a lively account of Gutenberg's life and his invention. The Gutenberg Museum in Mainz holds copies of his Bible and demonstrates his methods. And yes, this website's own downloadable books are a distant descendant of what Gutenberg began.