Printing

I

Introduction

Printing, name used for several processes by which words, pictures, or designs are reproduced on paper, fabrics, metal, or other suitable materials. These processes, sometimes called the graphic arts, consist essentially of making numerous identical reproductions of an original by mechanical means, and the printed book has thus been called the first mass product.

The history of printing, which by its very nature is the most thoroughly documented of any history, is practically identical with that of relief, or letterpress, printing (printing from a raised surface). Historically, the bulk of all printing has been produced by this entirely mechanical method. Modern printing techniques, however, increasingly rely on photomechanical, chemical, and electronic processes and computer technology.

II

Ancient Techniques

The application of signet stones is possibly the earliest known form of printing. Used in ancient times in Babylonia and elsewhere, apparently both as substitutes for signatures and as religious symbols, the devices consisted of seals and stamps for making impressions in clay, or of stones with designs cut or scratched on the surface. The stone, often set in a ring, was dabbed with pigment or mud and pressed against a smooth, resilient surface in order to make an impression.

The elaboration of printing from the simple stamping or signet-stone method to the process of printing on a printing press apparently occurred independently at different times in different parts of the world. Books copied by hand in ink applied with pen or brush were a significant feature of the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman civilizations. Such handwritten books were also produced in medieval monasteries and were greatly valued. In ancient Rome, commercial book publishers issued editions comprising as many as 5,000 copies of such illuminated manuscripts as the epigrams of the Roman poet Martial. This copying work was done by literate slaves.

III

Printing in the East

By the 2nd century ad the Chinese had developed and put into fairly widespread use the art of printing texts. Like most inventions, it was not entirely new, because the printing of designs and pictures on textiles had preceded the printing of words in China by at least a century.

Two important influences that favoured the development of printing by the Chinese were their invention of paper in ad 105 and the spread of the Buddhist religion in China. The common writing materials of the ancient Western world, papyrus and vellum, were not suited to printing. Papyrus is too fragile to be used as a printing surface, and vellum, a thin tissue taken from inside the hides of newly skinned animals, is an expensive material. Paper, on the other hand, is relatively strong and inexpensive. The Buddhist practice of making many copies of prayers and sacred texts encouraged mechanical means of reproduction.

The earliest surviving examples of Chinese printing, produced before ad 200, were printed from letters and pictures cut in relief on wood blocks. In 972 the Tripitaka, the sacred Buddhist scriptures comprising more than 130,000 pages, was printed entirely from wood blocks. A Chinese inventor of this period progressed beyond wood blocks to the concept of printing entirely from movable type—that is, from individual characters arranged in sequence as in present-day printing. Because the Chinese language requires between 2,000 and 40,000 separate characters, however, movable type did not seem practical to the early Chinese, and the invention was abandoned. Movable type made from moulds was invented separately by the Koreans in the 14th century, but they also found it less practical than the traditional method of block printing. The earliest extant volume in the world known to have been printed with movable metal type is the Korean Buddhist text, Jikji, which dates from 1377.

IV

Printing in the West

Movable metal type was first cast in Europe and printed with a printing press on paper by the middle of the 15th century. The invention appears to have been unrelated to earlier developments in East Asia, and the techniques differed considerably in detail. Whereas Eastern printers had used water-soluble inks, Western printers used oil-based inks from the beginning. In the East, printers made impressions simply by pressing the paper against the wood block with a flat piece of wood. The earliest Western printers in the Rhine river valley used mechanical presses derived in design from winepresses, and made of wood. The Eastern printers who had used movable type held the letters together with clay or with rods pushed between the types.

Western printers developed a technique of casting types with such precision that the letters could be held together by pressure applied to the edges of the tray containing the type for the page. In this system, a single letter a fraction of a millimetre too big could cause the letters surrounding it to fall out of the page. The development of a method of casting letters to precise dimensions was the essential contribution of the Western invention.

The principles involved in printing had been used by European textile workers, in printing designs on cloth, for at least a century before printing on paper was invented. The art of papermaking, introduced into the West in the 12th century, spread throughout Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries. By the mid-15th century paper was available in abundance. During the Renaissance, the rise of a prosperous and literate middle class increased the demand for quantities of reading matter. The rise of Martin Luther and of the Reformation and the subsequent religious wars were heavily dependent on the printing press and on the steady stream of printed pamphlets.

Johann Gutenberg, of Mainz in Germany, is traditionally considered the inventor of Western printing. The date associated with the invention is 1450. Both Dutch and French historians of printing have attributed the invention to people in their own countries and have produced considerable supporting evidence. The books of the first Mainz printer, however, particularly the book known as the Gutenberg Bible, far surpass in beauty and artisanship all the books that reputedly preceded them. Gutenberg’s great accomplishment undoubtedly contributed decisively to the immediate acceptance of the printed book as a substitute for the handwritten or manuscript book. Books printed before 1501 are said to belong to the incunabula era of printing.

In the period between 1450 and 1500, more than 6,000 separate works were printed. The number of printers increased rapidly during the same period. In Italy, for example, the first press was established in Venice in 1469, and the city had 417 printers by 1500. In 1476 a Greek grammar was printed wholly in Greek type in Milan, and a Hebrew Bible was printed at Soncino in 1488. Also in 1476 printing was brought to England by William Caxton; in 1539 Juan Pablos set up a press in Mexico City, bringing printing to the New World. Stephen Day, a locksmith by profession, travelled to Massachusetts Bay in New England in 1628 and helped establish the Cambridge Press in America.

The printers of northern Europe produced mostly religious books, such as Bibles, Psalters, and missals. Italian printers, on the other hand, printed chiefly secular works, for example, the newly revived Greek and Roman classics, the stories of secular Italian writers, and the scientific works of Renaissance scholars. An important early use of printing was in pamphleteering: in the religious and political controversies of the 16th and 17th centuries propaganda pamphlets were widely circulated. The production of these pamphlets made considerable work for the printers of those days.