by Malvika Bose

Created on: November 20, 2009

Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg was born around 1400 AD in Mainz, Germany. He was the youngest son of upper-class merchant Friele Gensfleisch zur Laden, and his second wife Else Wyrich. Gutenberg is credited with inventing the printing press around 1450 AD, which was capable of mass production of documents. Thought to be a goldsmith by profession, Gutenberg spent most of his life in Mainz and Strasburg. He was not very successful financially due to several misadventures in Business. He borrowed money for his printing work and was ultimately sued by his lender, a rich goldsmith and lawyer named Johann Fust for misuse of the funds.

Although long before Gutenberg invented the press, the Chinese were using ink, block printing and movable clay type technologies to produce manuscripts, Gutenberg's printing press brought about a major change, particularly in the western world. Copying books in those times was a tedious time consuming task. The Bible for example took almost a year to copy by hands.

Block printing technology was also used in those days. Words were cut on a smooth block of wood, which was size of a page. Wood was carved from the sides of each letter to raise them. The raised letters were inked and the block was then used for printing copies of a single page. Making blocks for each page of the book therefore took a lot of time, but once made the blocks were able to produce copies faster than handwritten books.

Books and manuscripts were very expensive for this reason and only the rich could afford them. Gutenberg is thought to have used 'Movable type' for his printing press. A letter or 'Type', was moulded by hammering the carved letter, (mirror image of the letter) on a soft metal like copper. A cast of the letter was prepared by pouring hot metal into a holder containing the mould. The letters casts were placed alongside each other to make words and sentences. Since the letters could be reused in any other combination, the process was termed 'Movable Type'.

The first book Gutenberg printed was the Latin language Bible. Each Bible was a decorated beautifully with full colour images. Only 22 copies out of about 200 bible's printed exist today. It is thought each copy is worth millions of pounds. Copies of Gutenberg's invention spread throughout Europe, but he did not get rich from his invention. Patents did not exist in those days so anybody could copy Gutenberg's invention and print without handing out any compensation to him. Therefore he went without any rewards for producing the machine that changed the world and died in 1468 in Mainz in abduct poverty.

By 1500 there were about 1,700 printing presses in Europe, which had collectively produced about 20 million volumes of 40,000 different books. Soon Bible became available to common man and he began questioning the Church. Mass production of books led to propagation of new ideas, which were largely responsible for the cultural and industrial revolution that happened over the next centuries. Without Gutenberg's invention, the Protestant Reformation would not have been possible. Gutenberg's printing technology remained unchanged for the next four centuries until new technologies were developed in tune with the times. Present day printing is totally computerized but the millions of printed books, documents and manuscripts owe their existence to Johannes Gutenberg.

http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-hist ory/gutenberg.html

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07090a.htm

Learn more about this author, Malvika Bose.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.