Exposé Anglais The printing press

« Exposé Anglais The printing press was marked by an illustrious figure: Gutenberg.

The story of this prodigious invention began around 1450 in Mainz, a patrician city where Gutenberg was born, under the name Johann Genfleish zur Ladem zum Gutenberg.

Little is known about the inventor, and unfortunately there are doubts that he actually invented the printing press.

However, we do know that Gutenberg discovered a process that revolutionized the art of printing and reproducing texts.

For this discovery to be made in this way, it took a combination of events, several other inventions and, of course, many creative minds.

Anyway, what made the printing press come into being in Gutenberg's time? This is what we will attempt to demonstrate in this work. At the start of the 15th century, the monks' mission was to transcribe any existing biblical document.

This task was long and arduous.

It sometimes took more than ten years to rewrite the biblical text by hand.

It was also a very expensive process because the medium we used, animal skins among others, was very expensive because we used so much.

This method was starting to suffer as we could no longer meet the constantly growing needs.

The spread of Christianity and the arrival of universities helped to increase the importance of the book and, by extension, of knowledge.

As the writings were handwritten, they could not be obtained quickly enough.

There were therefore several gaps to be filled. We are at the dawn of the Renaissance; different islands of invention surface.

On the one hand, there is the grape press, a crank which is connected to two plates of wood or stone and which is used to press the grapes.

Second, there is the printing of patterns on fabrics.

Third, the handling of metal is becoming more and more precise and finally, the arrival of paper, invented by the Chinese, as a new medium. The paper first expanded in Arab countries, then continued in Spain and Italy, finally reaching all over Europe around the beginning of the thirteenth century.

This medium is lighter, less expensive to manufacture and more easily absorbs ink; it no longer smudges.

All of these inventions have contributed, near or far, to Gutenberg's discovery of how printing works.

At the time, it was possible to print patterns on fabrics or religious images on decks of cards using prints carved in wood or stone.

Gutenberg took all of these ideas and combined them.

He fashioned letters in metal, he made models, molds and he cast them with a tough lead alloy, to make as many copies as he wanted.

In addition, these characters were small and removable, so they could be moved around as needed.

This is Gutenberg's great discovery.

Then, using a plate, we arranged the removable characters in a pre-established order, we installed this blade on the press, we positioned the paper, we put ink on the characters and we pressed everything.

So you could make as many copies as you wanted.. »