Johannes Gutenberg And The Origins Of Printing
JOHANNES GUTENBERG AND THE ORIGINS OF PRINTING
As we have seen, the burgeoning demand for reading material throughout Western Europe created a huge market for books. Entrepreneurs began to realize the potentially lucrative business opportunity this offered. Suppose it were possible to invent a new way of producing books quickly and cheaply. If the process could be kept secret in its early stages, it could make its inventor and his backers immensely rich. This was the new philosopher's stone, which could turn all to gold. By 1450, five individuals were desperately seeking the answer, each with their own financial backers. Jean Brito of Bruges, Panfilo Casteli of Feltre, Johannes Gutenberg of Mainz, Laurens Koster of Haarlem, and Prokop Waldvogel of Avignon were urgently pursuing this new holy grail, which promised to make them rich beyond their dreams.
The solution was eventually found by Johannes Gutenberg, who made the breakthrough that finally established printing as the communication technology of the future. Similar ideas may have been under development around the same time in Prague and Haarlem. But in business, the key question is not about who else is in the race, it's about who gets there first. Johannes Gutenberg was the first to make the new technology work, ensuring his place in any history of the human race.
Gutenberg was born to the wealthy Gensfleisch family in the city of Mainz. Following a long-standing custom, he took his mother's name. He trained in metalworking, and became a member of Mainz' Guild of Goldsmiths. In 1430, he moved to Strasbourg, where he established a business making high-quality metal mirrors. These were much sought after by pilgrims to local cathedrals, who believed that they could reflect the healing power of sacred relics on their owners. It was pure superstition, of course—but even superstition could be exploited for profit.
Gutenberg's experience in working metals to create mirrors would come in useful as he labored, in secret, to develop a new way of transferring ink to paper through the first printing press. Gutenberg's first experiments in new approaches to printing were carried out clandestinely in Strasbourg. They were hugely expensive, and Gutenberg had to borrow extensively to finance them. Gutenberg regarded the costs as the inevitable result of any major business venture, and had every expectation of recouping all his costs once the technology was perfected. Secrecy was essential if he was to stay ahead of the opposition.
What Gutenberg developed was a printing system. It is important to appreciate that the printing press being developed by Gutenberg brought together a number of existing technologies, as well as one major innovation—movable metal type. The invention of movable metal type on its own would not have been enough to enable this breakthrough. Gutenberg's genius lay in creating a system that incorporated both new and old ideas, allowing a task to be performed with unprecedented efficiency.
Gutenberg's experimental printing process involved the kind of wooden screw press traditionally used to crush grapes for wine or olives for oil, or to compress bales of cloth. A similar press was already used in paper production, to squeeze water out of newly made paper. Gutenberg appears to have realized that the process that removed water from paper might also be used to print ink onto that same medium.
An initial difficulty that Gutenberg encountered was that the screw used to press the platen—that is, the flat plate that spreads the pressure from the screw across a wide area of paper—caused ink smudges. Turning the screw to increase the pressure on the paper also caused the platen to rotate slightly, and thus blurred the printed impression. Gutenberg got around this difficulty by inserting a vertical wooden box between the screw and platen. This box—which came to be known as a “hose”—allowed the smudge-free printing so characteristic of Gutenberg's early productions.
But what kind of ink should be used? One of Gutenberg's key contributions to the development of printing was the invention of a new type of ink made from lampblack—the soot deposited by candle flames on cold surfaces—and varnish, which was suitable for this new approach to printing. The older printing technology used a water-soluble brown ink, which faded over time; the new process used a dark black ink, which was permanent. A range of water-soluble inks were available to medieval scribes. The liquid produced by cuttlefish and squid was employed to produce a sepia-colored ink, while a brown ink could be made by extracting the tannic acids found in gall nuts or tree bark. Egg white and gum acted as a media support for these inks.
Portrait of Johannes Gutenberg by an unknown artist
Oil-based ink had been developed earlier in the Middle Ages. The new inks, based on “lampblack,” had not been used extensively. The main reason for this was that most medieval books took the form of manuscripts made of vellum or parchment (calf-or lambskin), which did not readily absorb the oil. As a result, the ink did not always dry completely and smudged easily.
Gutenberg developed printing techniques that allowed paper to come into its own as a medium for the new technology. The origins of rag-and fiber-based papers can be traced back to second-century China. The Arab invasions of western China in the eighth century led to the Arabs acquiring this new technology; in turn, they passed it on to Europe. The first European paper mill was established in eastern Spain in 1074. The technology spread slowly across Europe. The first German paper mill was founded at Nuremberg in 1390. The reason for this slow advance is not difficult to establish. Paper was widely regarded as inferior to vellum. It cost less to produce than vellum, but it did not last as long. In addition, it had a tendency to absorb the water-based inks used in manuscript book production. Vellum was widely regarded as being superior on all counts.
Yet paper proved to be eminently suitable for the new process of mechanical printing, using metal type and oil-based inks. Although Gutenberg produced a small number of printed Bibles using vellum (or parchment; the two terms are more or less interchangeable), his technology effectively marked the end of vellum as a publishing medium. An additional factor here was that vellum did not absorb any kind of ink, whether water or oil-based. As a result, the pigments were deposited on the surface of the material, rather than absorbed within it. The pigments could thus easily be rubbed off the surface of vellum through constant use. The imprint on paper, in contrast, remained permanent.
Gutenberg's real breakthrough was the invention of movable type—that is, letters that could be reused after printing one book. Block-print technology—which had been known in Europe since the return of Marco Polo from Asia at the end of the thirteenth century—suffered a serious limitation. Each block had to be created specially for each page of a book; once it had been used, it could not be recycled or employed for any purpose other than reprinting exactly the same page. The process of carving the individual blocks was time-consuming. Errors could not easily be corrected. Gutenberg's solution allowed the reuse of type, and the ready correction of each page from “proofs.”
Gutenberg's type had to be designed and produced in large quantities. The cost was huge. After Gutenberg had returned to Mainz in 1448, he was able to interest Johann Fust, a local goldsmith, in his invention. Fust backed Gutenberg to the tune of eight hundred gulden in 1450, and the same amount again in 1452—nearly two million dollars by today's standards. The type was designed by Peter Schoeffer, and was probably cast in “speculum” metal—the same metal used by Gutenberg for the mirrors that gullible pilgrims believed reflected the spiritual powers of sacred relics in their direction. This metal consisted of an alloy of lead, tin, and antimony—the last being added to harden the metal, to ensure that it resisted wear. The method of casting type devised by Gutenberg would continue to be used until 1838, when David Bruce pioneered the first typecasting machine in New York.
There is evidence that Gutenberg initially printed about six short works—including a Latin grammar and an astronomical calendar—apparently partly to persuade Fust that his new invention really worked, partly to gain the experience of producing books, and partly to recoup his not inconsiderable operating costs.
Needing new investment urgently, Gutenberg wanted to persuade his patron that he was capable of the much greater project he had in mind. Fust allowed himself to be persuaded to make him a further loan, on condition that he become Gutenberg's partner in the great project they had in mind. By 1452 all was ready to begin the work that Gutenberg regarded as his life's goal—the production of the first printed Bible.