The printing press combines movable type, oil based ink and a mechanical press to reproduce text quickly and in quantity. Johannes Gutenberg built the press most directly ancestral to the modern one in Mainz around 1440, integrating movable metal type with a wooden press adapted from wine and paper pressing, a combination that made rapid, high volume printing practical for the first time in Europe.
Facts
Disputed
YearJohannes Gutenberg press with movable metal type, developed in Mainz around 1440, is the press most directly ancestral to the modern one and the one credited with transforming European literacy, scholarship and religion. Movable type printing itself is older: Bi Sheng in China developed movable clay type around 1040, and Korea printed with movable metal type by 1234, more than two centuries before Gutenberg. Gutenberg is credited separately for the integrated system of type, ink and press that made high volume printing practical in a way the earlier movable type systems did not. Patent or First-Use DateTraditional date for Gutenberg's press at Mainz; the exact day is not recorded, and no contemporary patent existed for it. SignificanceThe printing press drove a sharp fall in the cost of books, a corresponding rise in literacy, and the rapid spread of the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution across Europe. 2 FAQs
Did Gutenberg invent movable type?
No. Movable type existed in East Asia centuries earlier, but it did not gain widespread usage there.
No. The Chinese artisan Bi Sheng invented the first movable type in the 11th century, during the Song dynasty, using characters made of baked clay. The oldest surviving book incorporating metal movable type is the Jikji, dated 1377 and produced under the Korean state of Goryeo. None of the various East Asian methods gained widespread usage, largely due to their relative inefficiency: the logographic script used in China included thousands of distinct characters, which meant high production costs for a full set of type. The Gutenberg press benefited from its use of the Latin alphabet, with a relatively small set of characters.
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Source A History of TechnologyCharles Singer, E. J. Holmyard, A. R. Hall and Trevor I. Williams, editors
Invented By
Source A History of TechnologyCharles Singer, E. J. Holmyard, A. R. Hall and Trevor I. Williams, editors
Held Differently
Movable Type Printing, Inventions Why this is disputed. Bi Sheng's ceramic movable type and Gutenberg's metal-type press are mechanically distinct inventions developed roughly four centuries apart; historians debate whether knowledge of Asian movable type reached Gutenberg or whether his press was an independent invention that arrived at the same underlying principle. This edge records the historical and conceptual lineage, not a claim of direct technical descent.
Source Bi Sheng (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
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Sources
1. Printing Press (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundationopening image caption
A recreated Gutenberg press at the International Printing Museum in Carson, California
History section, Technological factors subsection
Johannes Gutenberg developed the movable-type printing press around 1440, combining four technologies that had each matured by the mid-fifteenth century
Lead section
A printing press is a machine that transfers ink onto materials such as paper or cloth by applying pressure to an inked surface.
View the Source 2. A History of Technology
Charles Singer, E. J. Holmyard, A. R. Hall and Trevor I. Williams, editors, Oxford University Press, 1954View the Source Bi Sheng (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationPreceded By: Movable Type Printing, Lead sectionView the Source Reader Challenges (0)
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