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With embossed letters and symbols carved in metal. The invention of Johannes Gensfleish, known as Gutenberg, allowed the mass printing of books – which were previously written by hand -, starting a revolution in Europe in mid-1455.
The technique was innovative but not pioneering. Since the 7th century, calendars and sacred books were printed by the Chinese – who used around 400,000 ideograms carved in wood. But Gutenberg created stronger movable type that could be reused in other print work. Thus, books ceased to be exclusive to nobles and clergy. By 1489, there were already presses like his in Italy, France, Spain, Holland, England and Denmark. By 1500, around 15 million books had already been printed.
LETTER BY LETTER
Each page was assembled with hundreds of characters, arranged manually.
HANDWORK
Composers arranged the letters to form the words of a line of text. Then, in a shape, they joined the lines – which would turn into columns and, finally, into a whole page.
MOBILE TYPES
They were manufactured in hard metal plates, the so-called matrices. They served as molds to merge as many characters as needed to compose a page. Movable types, in relief, were arranged in typographic boxes.
INK IN THE LETTER
At the time, the pigment was water-based and did not offer good adhesion. For his press, Gutenberg used an ink composed of linseed oil and carbon black, which marked the paper without smudging. It was applied to movable type with a bundle of cloth.
THE IMPRESSION
The press was moved by a bar, which moved the screw and the press. The paper or parchment was placed on top of the characters, under which it was pressed by a platinum plate, gaining the appearance of a page.
- The terms “uppercase” and “lowercase” emerged from the organization of typographic boxes – lowercase letters were at the bottom, while capital letters were kept at the top.
PRESSING
As the platinum platter was small, the columns of the same page were printed separately – which required running the press twice. A sheet of felt was placed between the page and the platen to improve the printing result.
FINAL PRODUCT
The first page is reviewed and, with approval, further copies are made. Afterwards, the characters are removed from the form and rearranged for printing the other pages of the work.
FINAL PRODUCT
The first page is reviewed and, with approval, further copies are made. Afterwards, the characters are removed from the form and rearranged for printing the other pages of the work.
About 200 Bibles were printed by Gutenberg. In Latin and with Gothic letters – imitating writing –, the pages of the sacred book had 42 lines, divided into two columns. Some of them had decorative traces made by hand. Due to the thickness of the copies – up to 1,300 pages – each Bible it had two volumes. Of all of them, 48 survive to this day in museums in different countries.
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