When was the printing press invented? Who invented printing? Printing in Russia
How did the first printing press work?
Individual printed characters, letters, were attached to solid metal in a mirror image. The typesetter put them into words and sentences until the page was ready. Printing ink was applied to these symbols. Using a lever, the page was pressed firmly against the paper placed underneath it. On the printed page, the letters appeared in the correct order. After printing, the letters were folded in a certain order and stored in the typesetting desk. This way the typesetter could quickly find them again. Today, a book is usually designed on a computer: the text is typed and sent directly from the computer to print.
Why was the invention of printing important? 
Thanks to new printing methods, it was possible to print a lot of texts in a short time, so suddenly many people had access to books. They were able to learn to read and develop spiritually. Church leaders no longer determined who could gain access to knowledge. Opinions were disseminated through books, newspapers or leaflets. And they were discussed. This freedom of thought was completely new for those times. Many rulers were afraid of her and ordered books to be burned. And even today this happens with some dictators: they arrest writers and journalists and ban their books.
All books printed before January 1, 1501 are called INCUNABULA. This word is translated as “cradle,” that is, the infancy of book printing.
Few incunabula have survived to this day. They are preserved in museums and largest libraries in the world. The incunabula are beautiful, their fonts are elegant and clear, the text and illustrations are placed on the pages very harmoniously. Their example shows that the book is a work of art. One of the largest collections of incunabula in the world, about 6 thousand books, is stored in the Russian National Library in the city St. Petersburg. The collection is located in a special room, the so-called “Faust’s office,” recreating the atmosphere of a Western European monastery library of the 15th century.
Did you know that...
In ancient Rus' did they write on birch bark? This is the name of the outer part of the birch bark, consisting of thin translucent layers that are easily separated from each other. The first typewriter was made in the USA in 1867? Is the number of books published around the world growing every year? True, this only applies to developed countries.
Check yourself.
1. In Germany, in the city of Strasbourg, in the central square there is a monument to Johannes Gutenberg. For what services did grateful descendants perpetuate the memory of this German master?2. Why are printed books from the 15th century called incunabula? 3. What new elements appeared in printed books in the 15th century?4. Explain the meaning of the following concepts using reference books. The Big Encyclopedic Dictionary (any edition) will help you: typesetting printing (typing) font typography engraving red line
Watch a cartoon about Johannes Guttenberg:
https://video.mail.ru/mail/glazunova-l/4260/4336.html
farta.livejournal.com
Who invented typography - When was it invented?
According to UNESCO, today about 4 billion inhabitants of our planet are literate, that is, able to read and write at least one language. On average, one reader “swallows” about 20 pages of printed text per day. It is impossible to imagine modern society without books, and yet for most of its history, humanity managed without them.
However, the amount of knowledge accumulated by people became larger and larger every year and decade. In order to transmit information to future generations, it was necessary to record it on a reliable medium. Different materials were used as such a carrier at different times. Rock inscriptions, baked clay tablets of Babylon, Egyptian papyri, Greek wax tablets, handwritten codices on parchment and paper were all the predecessors of printed books.
Printing (from the Greek polys “many” and grapho “I write”) is the reproduction of text or drawing by repeatedly transferring paint to paper from a finished printing plate. The modern meaning of this term implies the industrial reproduction of printed materials, not only books, but also newspapers and magazines, business, and packaging. However, in the Middle Ages, people needed books. The work of a copyist took a lot of time (for example, one copy of the Gospel in Rus' was copied in about six months). For this reason, books were very expensive; they were purchased mainly by rich people, monasteries and universities. Therefore, like any other labor-intensive process, the creation of books sooner or later had to be mechanized.
Woodcut board. Tibet. XVII-XVIII centuries
C. Mills. Young Benjamin Franklin masters printing. 1914
Of course, book printing did not arise out of nowhere; its inventors used many technological solutions that already existed by that time. Carved signet stamps, which allow one to imprint relief designs on a soft material (clay, wax, etc.), have been used by people since ancient times. For example, the signets of the Mohenjo-Daro civilization date back to the 3rd millennium BC. e. In Babylon and Assyria, cylinder signets were used and rolled over the surface.
Another component of book printing, the process of ink transfer, has also been known to mankind for a long time. First, the technology of printing patterns on fabric arose: a pattern cut out on a smoothly planed wooden plate was covered with paint, and then pressed onto a tightly stretched piece of fabric. This technology was used back in Ancient Egypt.
Traditionally, China is considered the birthplace of printing, although the oldest printed texts discovered in China, Japan and Korea date back to approximately the same time in the mid-8th century. The technology for their production differed from modern ones and used the principle of woodcut (from the Greek xylon “wood”). The original text or drawing, made in ink on paper, was ground onto the smooth surface of the board. The engraver cut wood around the strokes of the resulting mirror image. The form was then covered with paint, which only applied to the protruding parts, pressed tightly onto a sheet of paper, and a straight image remained on it. However, this method was used to print mainly engravings and small texts. The first accurately dated major printed text is a Chinese woodcut copy of the Buddhist Diamond Sutra, published in 868.
Real book printing began in China only in the middle of the 11th century, when the blacksmith Bi Sheng invented and put into practice movable type. As the Chinese statesman Shen Ko wrote in his treatise “Notes on the Stream of Dreams,” Bi Sheng carved signs on soft clay and burned them on fire, with each hieroglyph forming a separate seal. An iron board covered with a mixture of pine resin, wax and paper ash, with a frame to separate the lines, was filled with seals placed in a row. After the process was completed, the board was heated, and the letters themselves fell out of the frame, ready for new use. Bi Sheng's clay type was soon replaced by wooden and then metal type; the principle of printing from typesetting turned out to be very fruitful.
"Diamond Sutra" 868
In Europe, the woodblock printing method was mastered in the 13th century. As in China, at first they used it to print mainly engravings and small texts, then they also mastered books, in which, however, there were more drawings than text. A striking example of such a publication were the so-called Biblia pauperum (“Poor Man’s Bibles”), anthologies of biblical texts illustrated in the manner of modern comics. Thus, in Europe XIII-XV centuries. Two types of book production coexisted: parchment manuscripts for religious and university literature and paper woodcuts for the poorly educated common people.
In 1450, the German jeweler Johannes Gutenberg entered into an agreement with the moneylender Fust to obtain a loan to organize a printing house. The printing press he invented combined two already known principles: typesetting and printing. The engraver made a punch (a metal block with a mirror image of letters on the end), the punch pressed out a matrix into a soft metal plate, and any required number of letters was cast from the matrices inserted into a special mold. Gutenberg's fonts contained a very large number (up to 300) of different characters, such an abundance was necessary in order to imitate the appearance of a handwritten book.
Johannes Gutenberg examines the first printing press. 19th century engraving
Typesetting cash register with letters.
The printing press was a manual press, similar to a wine press, which connected two horizontal planes using a pressure screw: a typesetting board with letters was placed on one, and a slightly moistened sheet of paper was pressed against the other. The letters were covered with printing ink made from a mixture of soot and linseed oil. The design of the machine turned out to be so successful that it remained virtually unchanged for three centuries.
In six years, Gutenberg, working almost without assistants, cast no less than five different types, printed the Latin grammar of Aelius Donatus, several papal indulgences and two versions of the Bible. Wanting to defer loan payments until the enterprise began to generate income, Gutenberg refused to pay interest to Fust. The moneylender sued, by court decision the printing house was transferred to him, and Gutenberg was forced to start the business from scratch. However, it was the trial protocol, discovered at the end of the 19th century, that put an end to the question of the authorship of the invention of the printing press; before that, its creation was attributed to the German Mentelin, the Italian Castaldi and even Fust.
The official history of book printing in Rus' began in 1553, when the first state printing house was opened in Moscow by order of Tsar Ivan the Terrible. During the 1550s it published a number of "anonymous" (non-imprinted) books. Historians suggest that deacon Ivan Fedorov, known as the Russian pioneer printer, worked in the printing house from the very beginning. The first printed book in which the name of Fedorov and Peter Mstislavets, who helped him, is indicated was the Apostle, work on which was carried out, as indicated in the afterword, from April 1563 to March 1564. The following year, his second book, The Book of Hours, was published in Fedorov’s printing house.
Gutenberg's printing press.
By the middle of the 18th century. There was a need not only for more books, but also for the rapid production of newspapers and magazines in large circulations. A manual printing press could not satisfy these requirements. The printing machine invented by Friedrich König helped radically improve the printing process. Initially, in a design known as the "Zul press", only the process of applying ink to the printing plate was mechanized. In 1810 Koenig replaced the flat pressure plate with a rotating cylinder - this was a decisive step towards creating a high-speed printing machine. Six years later, a double-sided printing machine was created.
Although the flatbed printing press was a truly revolutionary invention, it still had serious disadvantages. Its printing form performed reciprocating movements, significantly complicating the mechanism, while the reverse motion was idle. In 1848, Richard Howe and Augustus Applegate successfully applied the rotary (i.e., based on the rotation of the device) principle for printing needs, which was successfully used for printing designs on fabric. The most difficult thing was to secure the printing form on the cylindrical drum so that the letters did not fall out when it rotated. The first rotary press installed in the printing house of the Times newspaper could make up to 10 thousand impressions per hour.
Improvements in the printing process continued throughout the 20th century. Already in its first decade, first two-color and then multi-color rotary machines appeared. In 1914, the production of machines for intaglio printing was mastered (their printing elements are recessed in relation to the whitespace), and six years later for flat or offset printing (the printing and whitespace elements are located in the same plane and differ in physical and chemical properties, with In this case, the ink only lingers on the printers). Nowadays, all printing operations are automated and controlled using computers. There has long been no shortage of printed paper books, but now they are competing with electronic books.
With the invention of offset printing, the printing cycle accelerated significantly.
28.01.2018
altpp.ru
Typography
The first books were copied by hand, which was a very labor-intensive process and took a lot of time. Printed books first appeared in the 9th century in Ancient China. Books were printed from printing boards. First, a drawing or text was applied to a rectangular board made of hardwood. Then, using a sharp knife, they cut deep into the areas that were not to be printed. A convex image was created on the board, which was covered with paint. The paint was made from soot mixed with drying oil. A sheet of paper was pressed against a board covered with paint, resulting in a print - an engraving. Then the board was re-painted and a new print was made. By the way, according to the information that has reached us, already in the 11th century in China, the blacksmith Bi-Sheng invented a method of setting printed text using clay movable type. For this purpose, he made letters or drawings from clay and fired them.
In Korea, the process of printing from typesetters was significantly improved and in the 13th century bronze types began to be used instead of clay ones. Books printed in Korea in the 15th century using bronze type have survived to this day. Later, printing from typefaces spread to Japan and Central Asia.
In the mid-14th - early 15th centuries in Western Europe there was a rapid transition from crafts to manufacturing, and the foundations of world trade were successfully laid and developed. Printing is rapidly beginning to replace the handwritten method of publishing books. In Europe, as in Ancient China, the first books were printed from boards on which text and drawings were cut out. The books printed in this way were small in volume. The first printed books that were very popular were: “The Bible of the Poor,” “The Mirror of Human Salvation,” “The Life and Passion of Christ.” Small textbooks on grammar, Latin grammar and others were also in great demand. Playing cards, cheap paintings, and calendars were printed this way. At first they printed only on one side of the sheet, but over time they began to print on both sides. Inexpensive books became increasingly popular over time and were in great demand.
However, board printing is a long and labor-intensive process. It cannot fully satisfy the needs of society, the board is used to print one specific book, this method becomes economically unprofitable. This is being replaced by the method of printing using movable letters, which can be used for many years to type completely different books. Printing with movable type was invented in Europe by the German Johannes Gutenberg. Coming from an old noble family of Gonzfleisch, in 1420 he left his hometown of Mainz and took up a craft, taking his mother’s surname - Gutenberg. Johann Gutenberg used forms for printing that were assembled from individual typesetting metal types.
To make letters, Gutenberg invented a special alloy of lead, tin and antimony. The alloy was poured into a soft metal matrix, in which 
letter-shaped indentations were pressed out. After the alloy cooled, the type letters were removed from the matrix and stored in typesetting boxes. Now the form for any page could be assembled within a few minutes from the cast type stored in the typesetting desks. Gutenberg invented waterproof ink. But Gutenberg's main achievement was the invention of a method for creating flexible, quickly and easily assembled, universal printing forms. The conventional date for printing books in Europe in this way is 1440. The first books were calendars and Donatus's grammar. In 1455, Gutenberg published the first printed Bible, which had 1,286 pages.
Gutenberg's printing technology remained virtually unchanged until the end of the 18th century. The manual printing press was invented for printing. It was a hand press in which two horizontal planes were connected to each other. Typeface was placed on one plane, and paper was attached to the other plane. Printing in this way quickly spread throughout Europe, and printing houses appeared in different cities. From 1440 to 1500, more than 30 thousand different book titles were published.
mirnovogo.ru
First Printing - Who invented it? | Inventions and discoveries
Johann Gensfleisch. nicknamed Gutenberg, was engaged, in particular, in copying books. During this activity, he came across so-called woodcut books. They were made like this: a mirror image was cut out on a wooden board, then paint was applied to the relief and a sheet of paper was carefully pressed onto it. It occurred to Gutenberg that it would be much more rational to work with movable letters. Already in 1447 he published his first book.
Printing from boards spread to Europe at the end of the 14th century. In Germany, Italy, and Flanders, paper money, playing cards, and religious pictures were printed using this method. At first there was no text on them, it was written in by hand, then pictures with printed text appeared. Books printed by woodblock printing (that is, from a board) appeared around 1450. The technique of printing from boards resembled Chinese technology in all respects. One side of the sheet remained clean.
The inventor of European printing, Johannes Gutenberg, also first practiced printing from boards. But this method of producing books was not adapted to European alphabets. And Guttenberg came up with an idea: typing text from individual letters. Implementing it, however, turned out to be no easy task; it took ten years of hard work. The main problem was that it was difficult to make letters in large quantities, without cutting each one individually. In other words, it was necessary to come up with a way to mass produce letters. The method Gutenberg eventually found involved abandoning wooden letters and casting them in metal.
He did it in the following way. First, I prepared convex images of letters, cutting them out on iron bars. Then he put this image against a copper block and hit the letter with a hammer. As a result, a concave image of the letter was imprinted on the copper. In printing, such an image is called a matrix. Gutenberg poured molten lead into it, and when the metal solidified, he removed a block with a convex image of a letter from the matrix. It was mirrored. Lead bars with a letter imprinted on them are called letters. One letter can be used to make thousands of identical letters - just as a letter carved on iron made it possible to make many identical dies.
Mass production of metal type from which the type was composed - this is the meaning of the invention of printing by Gutenberg. Next, we had to come up with a way to put the letters in a row so that we get an even line, and at the same time make a page from the lines. For this Johann invented a simple device- he used a metal plate with three sides, two of them were stationary, and the third could move. This device was called a workbench. The typesetter, in accordance with the text of the book being typed, laid one letter after another in the required order; the sides did not allow them to crumble. When the page was typed, the board was secured. The result was a framed page; it was called a printing plate. The form was covered with special paint and a sheet of paper was pressed against it. The result is an imprint of the type - printed text.
First printing press
In addition to the method of making type and setting text, Johannes Gutenberg created the printing press. He adapted a hand press for printing, which was used for squeezing grape juice. The printing press consisted of a lower board on which the inked set was mounted in a frame, and an upper board which was lowered by a screw. The top board pressed the sheet of paper tightly against the type - and a clear print was obtained. Thus, Guttenberg developed and created the entire printing process- from casting metal type to releasing the finished book.
All the preparatory work - the production of the first sets of fonts and the construction of the machine - required a lot of money. Gutenberg did not have them, and he had to enter into a deal with the wealthy merchant Fust. The condition was this: they split the profit from the invention in half. But Fust had an appetite, more than that - he wanted to take over the entire printing house. And he put forward an additional condition: the money he gives for the creation of a printing house is considered Guttenberg’s debt. If he does not return it on time, then the printing house becomes the property of Fust.
Things immediately went well for Guttenberg. The books were printed and initially sold well. Guttenberg took an assistant and made him an excellent master. The inventor spent his entire share of the profits on casting new fonts and building printing presses; Fust put his share in his pocket. And when Guttenberg’s money ran out, Fust began to demand a debt from him, sued and won his claim.
Guttenberg, starving, began to print books again, while getting into debt. Creditors threatened to sue, and everything could have ended sadly if not for a circumstance that is so typical of our time: the printed word first showed its power in political struggle.
In the city of Mainz, where Guttenberg lived, two archbishops, two highest clergy, were at enmity with each other. But it must be said that they also had enormous civil power - they did what they wanted, each had their own army. Gutenberg took the side of one of them - he began to print sheets in his support, trying to attract the population of the city to his side. And Fust fought for another priest. As a result, the first archbishop won. Guttenberg's contribution to this victory was “highly” appreciated: every year he could receive a free new dress, two hundred measures of grain and two cartloads of wine, as well as permission to receive lunch from the archbishop's table.
Gutenberg's first book
The first full-length book printed by Gutenberg was the so-called 42-line Bible, which consisted of two volumes of 1286 pages. Recognized as a masterpiece of early printing, this book imitated Gothic medieval manuscript books. The colored initials (capital letters) and ornaments were made by hand by the artists.
By 1500, printing had penetrated into 12 European countries. Over the 60 years since the new method began to be used, more than 30 thousand book titles have been printed, the average circulation of one book was 300 copies. These books were called "incunabula".
The printing of books in Old Church Slavonic began at the end of the 15th century. The Belarusian printer Francis Skaryna achieved especially great success here in 1517-1519. who printed books in Prague, and in 1525 - in Vilna.
Printing appeared in the Moscow state in the middle of the 16th century. Its founder was Ivan Fedorov. The first book “Apostle”, printed at the Moscow Printing Yard (it was the first Moscow printing house), dates back to 1564.
An invention without which it is difficult to imagine universal literacy of the population today is the printing press. There is no doubt that this car changed the world for the better. But when did it appear in our everyday life and what is its history?
Today, the scientific world is of the opinion that the first printing press was built by a German entrepreneur. However, there are reliable facts that similar devices were used by people much earlier. Residents also stamped clay using paint and a stamp. In the first century AD, fabrics decorated with patterns were common in Asia and Europe. During ancient culture, stamps were placed on papyrus, and the Chinese had paper on which they printed prayers using wooden templates already in the second century AD.
In Europe, publishing books was the province of monasteries. At first they were copied by hand by the monks. Then they made a page template and printed it, but this process was long, and a new template was needed for a new book.
Almost immediately, carved boards were replaced by metal type, which applied oil-based ink using a press. It is believed that the technique of loose type was first used by Gutenberg (1436). It is his signature that adorns the most ancient printing press. However, the French and Dutch dispute this fact, arguing that it was their compatriots who invented such an important machine.
So, when asked who invented the printing press, most of our contemporaries will answer that it was Johannes Guttenberg. He was born in Mainz into a family from the old noble family of Gonzfleisch. It is not known for certain why he left his hometown, took up a craft and took his mother’s surname. However, in Strasbourg he made the main invention of the century.
Machine device
Gutenberg hid how his printing press worked. However, today it can be argued that at first it was made of wood. There is news that his first typeface existed back in the sixteenth century. Each letter had a hole through which a rope was threaded, connecting the typed lines. But wood is not a good material for such a thing. The letters swelled or dried out over time, making the printed text uneven. Therefore, Guttenberg began to cut a stamp from lead or tin, and then cast the letters - it turned out much easier and faster. The printing press actually acquired its modern appearance.
The book printing machine worked like this: initially, letters were made in mirror form. By hitting them with a hammer, the master received impressions on a copper plate. This is how the required number of letters were made, which were used many times. Then words and lines were put together from them. Gutenberg's first products were Donatus's grammar (thirteen editions) and calendars. Having gotten the hang of it, he ventured into a more complex task: the first printed Bible had 1,286 pages and 3,400,000 characters. The publication was colorful, with pictures, and hand-drawn by artists.
The Gutenberg case continued. In Rus', such a machine appeared in 1563, when, on the orders of Ivan the Terrible, Fedorov built his own machine.
In Europe, he invented typography from typesetting. This meant that letters, numbers and punctuation marks were cast from metal and could be used repeatedly. And although a similar system was known to the Chinese around 1400 BC, it did not take root there due to the presence of several hundred written characters. And the method was forgotten. Around 1450, Johannes Gutenberg began printing texts in Germany in a new way. At first these were calendars or dictionaries, and in In 1452 he printed the first Bible. It later became known throughout the world as the Gutenberg Bible.
How did the first printing press work?
Individual printed characters, letters, were attached to solid metal in a mirror image. The typesetter put them into words and sentences until the page was ready. Printing ink was applied to these symbols. Using a lever, the page was pressed firmly against the paper placed underneath it. On the printed page, the letters appeared in the correct order. After printing, the letters were folded in a certain order and stored in the typesetting desk. This way the typesetter could quickly find them again. Today, a book is usually designed on a computer: the text is typed and sent directly from the computer to print.
Why was the invention of printing important?
Thanks to new printing methods, it was possible to print a lot of texts in a short time, so suddenly many people had access to books. They were able to learn to read and develop spiritually. Church leaders no longer determined who could gain access to knowledge. Opinions were disseminated through books, newspapers or leaflets. And they were discussed. This freedom of thought was completely new for those times. Many rulers were afraid of her and ordered books to be burned. And even today this happens with some dictators: they arrest writers and journalists and ban their books.
All books printed before January 1, 1501 are called INCUNABULAMI. This word is translated as “cradle,” that is, the infancy of book printing.
Few incunabula have survived to this day. They are preserved in museums and largest libraries in the world. The incunabula are beautiful, their fonts are elegant and clear, the text and illustrations are placed very harmoniously on the pages.
Their example shows that a book is a work of art.
One of the largest collections of incunabula in the world, about 6 thousand books, is stored in the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg. The collection is located in a special room, the so-called “Faust’s office,” recreating the atmosphere of a Western European monastery library of the 15th century.
Did you know that...
In ancient Rus' did they write on birch bark? This is the name of the outer part of birch bark, consisting of thin translucent layers that are easily separated from each other.
The first typewriter was made in the USA in 1867?
Is the number of books published all over the world growing year by year? True, this only applies to developed countries.
Check yourself.
1. In Germany, in the city of Strasbourg, in the central square there is a monument to Johannes Gutenberg. For what merits did grateful descendants perpetuate the memory of this German master?
2. Why are printed books from the 15th century called incunabula?
3. What new elements appeared in printed books in the 15th century?
4. Explain the meaning of the following concepts using reference books.
The Big Encyclopedic Dictionary (any edition) will help you
letter
typeset printing (typing)
font
printing house
engraving
Red line
Watch the cartoon about Johann Guttenberg:
http://video.mail.ru/mail/glazunova-l/4260/4336.html
Computer technologies are pervasively penetrating all spheres of human activity. The electronic media they have created are increasingly crowding out the position of the printed word. And yet, even in the 21st century it is difficult to imagine our life without everything that is dryly called “printed products”.
Without exaggeration, we can say that the invention of printing rightfully takes its place among the true breakthroughs of human thought, among such significant discoveries as the invention of the compass, gunpowder and paper. Being at its core a purely technical, or rather even technological, invention, printing became a catalyst for human progress that determined the development of civilizations in the second half of the past millennium.
Humanity took a long road to the invention of the printing press, and the history of the creation of the printed book was not cloudless and, for various reasons, turned out to be torn apart by five centuries of oblivion.
For a long time, human memory was the only means of preserving and transmitting social experience, information about events and people. The immortal poems The Iliad and The Odyssey are known to have been written down on scrolls in Athens around 510 BC. Until this time, poems had been spread orally for centuries. The invention of writing can probably be considered the first information revolution in the history of mankind, which greatly advanced the peoples who accomplished it. However, mastery of writing did not guarantee nations either global leadership or historical longevity. This is evidenced by the fate of disappeared peoples who once had their own written language (for example, the Sumerians).
Currently, there are about 8,000 alphabets and their variants in the world, adapted to different languages and dialects. The most common alphabets are those based on Latin.
Typography (translated from Greek as polygraphy) is the reproduction of a large number of copies of the same text or drawing.
The idea of a seal was embedded in the brand or mark with which cattle breeders marked their horses or cows. The principle of stamping was already known in the cuneiform cultures of the Ancient East (Sumerians, Babylon, Egypt). Symbols were applied in a spiral shape to the clay disk using stamps. In fact, this disc was the first example of printing linked text. The next stage is printing coins. Then “stone” books and books on clay tablets appeared, later papyrus scrolls, and from the 2nd century BC. – books on parchment (parchment). Then, in the era of Aristotle and Plato, manuscripts were revealed to the world.
It can be said that printing was invented twice: in the 900s AD. in the Celestial Empire (China) and then in the XV| century in Western Europe. Chinese printing initially used a technology in which a board was used as a printing form on which texts and symbols were cut out. Around 725 The world's first newspaper, "Di-bao" ("Bulletin"), was published. In 770 At the behest of Empress Shotoku, a million spells were imprinted in this way and placed in miniature pagodas. Then the print appears.
Stamping is a technique for obtaining a direct impression of a relief image. The first experiments with such a unique printing method date back to a period almost coinciding with the invention of paper in China (2nd century AD). The method consists of obtaining impressions from flat stone reliefs; Lightly moistened paper is applied to the relief, rubbed in with special brushes and pressed lightly into the recesses; After that, water paint is applied to the surface of the dried paper, which has taken on the relief shapes, with a large flat brush and swabs.
Then in the Buddhist monasteries of China, approximately 618-907. The technology of woodcut printing, or woodcut engraving, appeared. The first woodcut book was called The Diamond Sutra. It was made in 868 and first discovered in 1900. in the "Cave of a Thousand Buddhas" in Donghuan (Western China). In Europe, the woodcut book, as such, appeared during the Middle Ages after the Crusades. One of the famous woodcut publications was the Poor People's Bible.
During the Renaissance in Europe, printing received a rebirth. In the 1440s, the woodcut method was improved by the German Hans Gensfleisch or Johannes Gutenberg (1394/1399 – 1468).
The invention of printing by I. Gutenberg marked the most important turning point in the history of book culture - the end of the medieval book and the birth of the modern book. This invention was prepared and inspired by the entire development of the culture of the late Middle Ages, which created both the technical and general cultural prerequisites for it, and determined the urgent need for a book of a new type.
It was in his printing house in the German city of Mainz that printed books, typed using metal movable letters cut in a mirror image, first saw the light of day. The book printing technology he developed turned out to be the most productive for that time. Gutenberg came to the conclusion that it was necessary to quickly cast any quantity of type - the type casting process. He thought through this process to the smallest detail and for its implementation the following were developed: a method for making a printing form by typing text in individual letters, a manual type casting device, a manual printing press for obtaining an impression from a type casting form.
The invention of the printing press led to the further development of book production technology and had a strong impact on the typology and art of the book, gaining general cultural significance - the path to the formation of mega-civilizations, such as Western European, Chinese, and Islamic, was determined. We can say with confidence that the history of world culture is inseparable from the history of the printed book.
If a handwritten book was a very expensive item, and therefore, their largest collections, as a rule, were located in monasteries and universities, then the era of I. Gutenberg turned the book into a publicly accessible one, which means that it became a necessary element in the process of knowledge, education, and the formation of an aesthetic taste, a means of influencing the masses and even an information weapon. Already in that distant time, kings, emperors, clergy and those in power in the modern era began to use books to promote their ideas, form a particular ideology, and strengthen their power. For example, Henry VIII and his Prime Minister Thomas Cromwell published pamphlets to establish the Church of England.
The first half of the 15th century was a time of great geographical and scientific discoveries, the transition to new socio-economic and political relations, the birth of a new worldview and attitude, the birth of new cities and new states, the era of the Reformation, when the Bible was translated into German by Martin Luther and published by circulation. The ongoing changes led to a high demand for books, resulting in the need for printing. By the end of the century, more than a thousand printing houses had been founded, which had already produced about 40 thousand publications with a circulation of approximately 12 million copies. Simultaneously with the triumphant march of book printing across Europe, a new form of the book was born and quickly established itself, and with it a new book aesthetics.
The presence of a book market, the simultaneous demand for a large number of copies of at least some of the most widespread and important books, raised the question of circulation for printing houses, especially since printing technology is primarily a circulation technique, and economically advantageous due to the ability to produce a large number from one set. number of equivalent prints. In this way, another practical task that was becoming increasingly urgent was solved: careful verification of the text before its reproduction, without exposing the book to the danger of distortion during repeated rewriting. But in order for these tasks to be consciously set, it is necessary, on the one hand, the development of scientific criticism of texts, and on the other, the emergence of the very idea of circulation as a specific, predetermined form of the book, subject to technical reproduction.
In 1494 The Montenegrin printing house began its activities located in a monastery in the city of Cetinje, founded by the monk Macarius. The first book in the Old Church Slavonic language, “Okhtoich the First Glas”, was published.
In 1517-1519. In Prague, Francis Skaryna, a Belarusian pioneer printer and educator, printed the book “Psalter” in Cyrillic script in Church Slavonic.
Book printing in Rus' dates back to the 50s of the 16th century in a Moscow printing house located in the house of priest Sylvester (author of Domostroi). Here were published in Church Slavonic: three Four Gospels, two Psalms and two Triodions. A feature of Russian fonts was the use of superscripts with crossed lines, separately from other letters. This made it possible to skillfully imitate the appearance of a handwritten book page. Tin was used for casting fonts, so the letters could not withstand printing in large quantities.
In 1563 The first state printing house began its activities, known for the fact that Ivan Fedorov and Pyotr Timofeev Mstislavets worked there. It was there that the first dated book, The Apostle, was published. The work on its publication lasted almost a year - from April 19, 1563 to March 1, 1564.