Setting the First Type
You work in Gutenberg's workshop and have just pulled the first clean page off the press. For a thousand years a book meant one person copying another. Describe the moment you realize what this machine will do to the world.
Around 1440, Johannes Gutenberg developed movable metal type and a practical printing press in Mainz. His 42-line Bible (c. 1455) is among the first major books printed in Europe this way.
Field notes
Did you know
- Movable type existed earlier in East Asia; Gutenberg's leap was the metal-type-plus-press system suited to European scripts.
- Before printing, a single Bible could take a scribe years to copy.
- Within 50 years, presses across Europe had produced millions of books.
Key phrases
movable type · the platen · impression · ink and matrix · a machine that multiplies minds
Chase this down
Look up: the Gutenberg Bible; the spread of print in the 1400s (the 'incunabula').
Craft tip
Big historical turning points land hardest through one small human reaction. Zoom in, don't lecture.
Try this
Write the same moment from the point of view of a scribe who fears for his livelihood.