Inventions
The Printing Press
Also Known As Gutenberg Press
Citation Formats
General Reference
APA Style
BibTeX
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 Cross-Tradition Connections
In Field
Invented By
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.
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Printing Press (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundationopening image captionQuote, opening image caption
A recreated Gutenberg press at the International Printing Museum in Carson, California
1. Printing Press (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationHistory section, Technological factors subsectionQuote, 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
1. Printing Press (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationLead sectionQuote, 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.
2. A History of Technology
Charles Singer, E. J. Holmyard, A. R. Hall and Trevor I. Williams, editors, Oxford University Press, 1954
Bi Sheng (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationPreceded By: Movable Type Printing, Lead sectionView the Source Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.