How did the ideas of the Renaissance spread?

The Printing Press!

Before the Renaissance…• Book-making was slow,

expensive, and done by hand• It took 4-5 months to copy

200 pages• Few people could read or write

– Mostly clergy (religious figures)

– Mostly in Latin

• The Church owned most books

Illuminated Manuscripts:

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html

Beautiful but oh so time consuming…

Johann Gutenberg

• Gutenberg was from Mainz, Germany

• He invented a mechanical way of producing books that surpassed any existing technology

• His first book was printed between 1450 and 1455

Chinese Print Technology

• Movable Type had existed in China starting in the 1000s

• Woodblock Print and the tools used to make it

Gutenberg’s Improvements

Gutenberg's main innovations were

1. the printer's ink

2. the making of type

3. the use of a press

4. the production process itself

The Ink

• It was not really ink at all, more like an oil paint

• It is unlike writing-ink, which was water-based

• Water-based ink would have run off the metal types. Instead the thick, oil-based varnish stuck to them.

The Press

• One of Gutenberg's most radical ideas was to use a press for printing.

• Presses had been around for a long time, but were used for other purposes, notably wine-making.

The Types• Types = Letters, Punctuation marks, and other

signs• Gutenberg invented a way of mass-producing

them• They were made out of metal• They could be put together to form words,

sentences, and pages• After printing the page, the types could then be

reused

The Press

TheInk

The type

The Scriptorium

A leaf from Catholic Church. Book of Hours. Rouen, France, ca. 1490.

The Production Process

The Gutenberg BibleHow does this compare to the medieval text we

looked at earlier?

Gutenberg’s Impact

• Gutenberg's invention did not make him rich• It made books easier to produce and cheaper to buy• Books, newspapers and pamphlets became mass-produced• Materials were published in the vernacular, or common

language of the people• Literacy rates increased, and ideas spread rapidly.• People were able to debate and discuss matters that

concerned them. • There were more attempts at censorship, as those in

authority felt threatened by the new abundance of information• Sparked many religious revolutions. Allowed the

common man to posses a Bible for his own interpretation.

What ideas will be spread?• Artistic Innovations and Techniques

• Science and Technology

• Knowledge about new lands

• Political Theories

• Humanism