- OK, why don’t we start? So… you all probably know about Johannes Gutenberg’s contributions to the technology of printing in 1448… a new kind of printing press included. He has been credited with inventing movable type in Europe first… uh, this was an improvement on the block printing already in use there. And he’s also credited with being the first one to use an oil-based ink. You might wonder, what’s so great about an oil-based ink?
Well, oil ink is stickier than the water ink used in the former wooden cast, so it attaches to the types in the cast more effectively. But really, what I want to focus on today are the inventions that came before the printing press, that, you know, were the stepping stones to it. So… can anyone think of any invention that helped popularize the printing press and, well, make it possible?
- Well, this may sound silly, but my grandma had bad eyesight and couldn’t read until we got her a pair of reading glasses. Perhaps, the invention of eyeglasses helped spark the invention of the printing press?
- You’re absolutely right. It’s true, when people can’t see small print, there’s little demand for books.
But books became extremely popular after eyeglasses were invented in Italy in the 13th century.
We could even say eyeglasses stimulated the printing press because people could see better.
Do you see what I mean? But… there’s an invention of Gutenberg’s that preceded his innovative printing press.
It was the movable type. What I’d like to ask you, though, is did Gutenberg really invent movable type, as is commonly believed?
- Hm, I think… I’m going to say yes. I mean, before him, they had to write things by hand, right?
- You know what? The Chinese would be surprised to hear your response.
They’ve been using the system of movable characters for a long time.
They had characters on bones, bronze, ceramic, and stone slabs 5000 years before Christ.
A bit astonishing, isn’t it? And… they also invented paper 2200 years ago.
And with the invention of paper, not surprisingly, the question of reproducing characters arose.
So, what were the Chinese printing thousands of years before Gutenberg invented his own version of movable type? Well, they distributed thousands of copies of classical Chinese literature by using a simple method of printing.
They had this moistened paper which they pressed onto the inscription stones, and when they brushed the paper with ink, the cut characters stood out white against the blackened paper.
So… moving along… the next level of printing was the so-called woodblock printing in the 7th century.
Here, each character was cut in reverse into a piece of wood by removing the surrounding wood.
So, these raised lines were dyed and rubbed on paper, and what you got was print of the desired text.
But around 1041, a man named Bi Sheng began experimenting with movable, individual printing types made of clay. What he did was, he arranged them on an iron plate as whole texts and then fixed them with a layer of wax and resin. These were then printed. If the characters were to be used again, a person heated the iron plate until the wax and resin melted and released the forms again. Some three hundred years later the first wooden characters appeared, and after that, the first metal characters. So, I would argue, in fact, that the Chinese were the first to invent movable type. But in fairness to Gutenberg, he invented the molds that allowed for mass production of individual pieces of metal type. Before this, each piece of metal type had to be individually carved by hand. So it was his invention that allowed the widespread use of movable type, you know, where each charater is a separate block. After that, printing presses began to spring up all over Europe. Ok, what type of material did he print on?
- He used rag paper introduced into Europe from China by way of the Muslims. I believe they had a paper mill in operation in Baghdad, well, as early as 794.
- Great! You did your reading last night! The rag paper developed by the Chinese, the wood block prints already in Europe, and even the invention of eyeglasses enabled people to read small print…
All these point to how you could say that Gutenberg was standing on the shoulders of giants.
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