Before Class, Chapter 5 & Part of 6

The invention of printing finally came to Europe and with that so did a lot of drama. As typography and xylography were produced and innovated, it allowed many advances in civilization. Papermaking finally made its way to Europe as well, making it much easier to print things. Book blocks were an early innovation of printing and were printed with brown or gray ink with a hand rubber but as time went on, they were later printed in black ink on a printing press. By record, Gutenberg was very much involved in the invention of the printing press. There were many steps that were involved in typographic printing that Gutenberg discovered but the key innovation was the type mold which was used for individual letters. He also produced the idea of printing a Bible. He wanted to produce a forty-two-line bible, printed and everything. Now this is where it gets juicy and where all the drama begins!

Since all the printing equipment was very expensive, especially for that time, Gutenberg pulled out a number of loans to pay for everything. As time went on and he still didn't pay off his loans, a man named Fust sued Gutenberg for his unpaid loans and interest he didn't pay. He did this right before Gutenberg was about to finish the forty-two-line bible he had been working on for so long. Fust seized all of Gutenberg's printing equipment and all of his work he was currently working on. Poor Gutenberg! Then, if that wasn't enough, Fust then joined a partnership with a man named Schoeffer who was in charge of all the printing. The two completed the forty-two-line bible and traveled many places to distribute them.

Fust and Schoeffer had a few innovations during their partnership in the printing business. One of them was decorated two-color initials which were used in a psalter in Latin and the other innovation was a small-sized type seen in the Rationale Divinorum Officiorum.

Although Fust and Schoeffer took over Gutenberg's printing press, Gutenberg still gets a lot of credit. Gutenberg's press was improved and used for four hundred years. Records also show that Gutenberg was involved in copperplate engravings.

As books became more and more popular, and so did the printing press, illustrations were produced. The German illustrated book was produced and illustrations showed a lot of emotions and helped the reader better understand and comprehend the text. Albrecht Durer was a famous illustrator that published The Apocalypse. His illustrations were very vivid and also showed lots of volume and depth. This new innovation was a great pair to go along with the printing press. Illustrations made books much more understandable for visual learners (like me)!

One thing that I learned from this reading and found interesting was that playing cards were the first printed pieces in Europe. This surprised me considering now there is such an over-abundance of playing cards everywhere! Playing cards entertained many people during that time, as they do now today.