History of book printing

A lot of the artifacts of printing were for a non-reading audience: This is "Queen of the Wild Men." It was created by the Master of Playing Cards in the early years of the print era. One thing that can be seen in these images is a better sense of realism and perspective. These are less icons than images.

Some of the images are quite fanciful. This is a detail of the letter "K" done by Master E. S.

Along with these simpler images you also get some of the great masters of the age.

This is Albrect Durer's "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse." Durer tried to turn the print medium into a serious space for art. He worked out a visual language that could show the intricate details of a scene. While he used a kind of Renaissance perspective in the construction of his images, he is also interested in anatomy and detail, all the while maintaining a medieval quality to the content of the drawing.

During this time, in addition to Bibles and prayer books, we get traditional material in print: romances such as Giovanni Boccaccio's De Claris Mulieribus (Concerning famous women.)

The printed book quickly becomes a regular object in the world. By 1501 there were 1000 printing shops in Europe, which had produced 35,000 titles and 20 million copies.

2.5. Luther and the Protestant Reformation

The real innovation in culture, related to print, is in the Protestant Reformation, at the beginning of the 16th century. Martin Luther begets the Protestant Reformation in the early to mid-1500s in Germany. In 1536, John Calvin publishes his work in Strasbourg, then moves to Geneva Switzerland. The Reformation was the first revolutionary mass movement, in part because took advantage of printed propaganda.

Because of the low literacy rates of Europe at the time, much of this propaganda took form in images. One popular target for such images was the pope, here portrayed by Lucas Cranach as the "Whore of Babylon."

2.6. The Rise of Vernacular Languages and Nation States and the Decline of the Roman Catholic Church

The power of the Roman Catholic Church was based in part on the ability of the church to enforce the use of Latin as the language for the worship of God. Just as the manuscript books were the main visual means of venerating God, so to Latin was the only verbal means of communicating with him. In Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson notes, that as long as the Church could maintain this link, and as long as it controlled who learned to speak and write Latin, the Church could maintain its position in the world. With Latin was the only language for religious texts, the priest represented the only true path to God and way to salvation. Through that link, the Church maintainedits political power in the world. The concept of Latin as the only language appropriate to worship in, or the only path to God, was challenged by Luther. His challenge was fostered and enlarged by books, most notably Bibles and prayer books, in vernacular languages. One of the consequences of this push into the world is that books become a way of disseminating information about the outside world; new information about a new world that Europe was very curious about. In the art of this time, there was a distortion of perception and an inability to incorporate novelty that made it difficult for Europeans to put all of their understanding of the world within this new kind of a printed frame. And, just as the flora and fauna of the New World was both frightening and fanciful, so too were the inhabitants. By far, the biggest effect of the universities, print books and an increasingly literate reading public, came in the emerging scientific fields of botany, geography, and astronomy. In large part, the rise of Science as a replacement for religion as a way of seeing the world has to do with the changing nature of libraries. In the early 13th century, science got a boost from the Crusaders returning from the Holy Land. These men brought back copies of the texts of the Greeks and Romans, lost to European audiences since the fall of Rome. Included in those texts were science texts from the Greeks. When printing makes copies of these books available to a wider audience, and makes it possible to do comparison between books, the comparison of these ideas leads to new ideas. This leads to new books on scientific subjects, when, by the 15th century, there are new books on science, mathematics, and military engineering.

2.7. Libraries

There were more and more people in Europe who could read and they wanted more and more books. That led to opening more libraries. Early libraries were used only by scientists and were few. By and by they grew in number and began to be used by the public. The 19th century saw the appearance of a proper system of public libraries. Now most countries have their own national libraries. Many old university libraries have rich collections of books: Oxford and Cambridge in England, Harvard and Yale in the United States. Among the great libraries of the world we can name The British Museum Library in London, the Library of Congress in the United States, Bibliotheque Nationale in France, the Beijing Library in China, the State Public Library in Moscow. The world largest is the US Library of Congress. It holds about 90 million items – books and manuscripts. The library was founded in 1800 in Washington, DC for the use of Congress and later became a public library. Bibliotheque Nationale dates back to the 17th century and The British Museum Library was set in the 18th century. Here is its photo. The State Public Library in Moscow was founded in 1862 and has unique collections of books.

Modern libraries do their best to help people get information as quickly as possible. They use computers and electronic catalogues. Probably the most difficult problem for any library is to keep their books journals and films.

2.7. Modern printing technology

Books and newspapers are usually printed today using the technique of offset printing. Offset printing is a widely used printing technique where the inked image is transferred (or "offset") first to a rubber blanket, then to the printing surface. When used in combination with the lithographic process, which is based on the repulsion of oil and water, the offset technique employs a flat (planographic) image carrier on which the image to be printed obtains ink from ink rollers, while the non-printing area attracts a film of water, keeping the nonprinting areas ink-free. Other common printing techniques include relief print, (which is principally used for catalogues), screen printing, rotogravure, and digital-based inkjet and laser printing. The largest commercial and industrial printer in the world is Montréal, Quebec-based Quebecor World.

3. Conclusion

Printing was the greatest achievement of the epoch of the Renaissance, this invention virtually turned over the whole European life in the 16th century. The beginning of the mass spread of the book may be considered the period of the Reformation. The history of the book presents us with a complete, observable communications revolution. The historical record is such that we can watch the whole of a vast socio-cultural, political, and economic change happen over a period of some three to five hundred years (depending on whose perspective you prefer). By following the developments in manuscript and print book production, tied to the changes in the technologies used to produce those texts, we can also chart the various changes in social organization, politics and economics from the feudalism of the 7th century, through to the advent and advance of early capitalism in the 15th century.

References

     Hans Reichard “Ancient Greece” Slovo 1994

     O.V. Afanasyeva, I.V. Micheeva “English VII” Prosveshcheniye 2001

     Lecture by Chandra Mukerji “The history of printing”

     “Medieval history” Моscow, 1980

     “Books and printing” Leningrad, 1981

     "Offset Printing". Encyclopædia Britannica (Retrieved March 22, 2004, from Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service)

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