Printing or the capacity to reproduce text and image mechanically has rightly

been hailed as a technology with far-reaching impact. But the technology takes
more than one form and originated in more than one historical context. In this
module you will learn how early printed books in mid-fifteenth century Europe
were at first modelled on medieval manuscripts, but soon developed new
conventions that remain familiar to us today. The module also explores printing
in East Asia, by wood block and movable type, and the late dominance of
manuscript production in the Islamic world.
In the first unit of this module we compare and contrast manuscripts and printed
books produced mainly in Europe from 1470-1700, looking at continuities and
differences in layout, format, and the methods, materials, and economics of
production. We also discuss examples of illustrated books and of handwritten
annotations in books, including marginal annotations by readers and the marks
of censors. Two shorter units in this module focus on printing in East Asia,
especially China, to highlight the features of woodblock printing which was
common there, and on the Middle East, especially the Ottoman context, where a
vibrant manuscript culture remained dominant until 1800. Taken together the
three units give an overview of three different contexts and technologies of book
production before 1800.
Each unit features rare manuscripts and printed books in the Harvard Libraries
most of which are freely available in digital form, which viewers can investigate
in more depth on their own.

What is distinctive about printing in early modern Europe? Early printed books
were modeled on medieval manuscripts, and some of those conventions are still
with us today. Consider, for example, a Bible laid out in two columns with page
headings to help you find your way around.
Printing introduced new conventions which are also still with us, like title pages
and front matter of various kinds, as well as page numbering.
Printing wasn't unique to Europe. The Chinese and other East Asian cultures
following them had developed paper and printing a good 600 years before
Gutenberg -- not only woodblock printing, but also printing by movable type
(though it was less commonly used). Paper was transmitted to Baghdad by the
8th century via the Silk Road; from the Islamic world to southern Europe in the
13th century; and north to the Alpine Mountains a century or so later.
The technique of stamping to transfer an image from a woodblock onto cloth or a
thin sheet of metal also found its way to Europe probably by the same route by
the late Middle Ages. These were crucial prerequisites to Gutenberg's invention.
Other key ingredients in Gutenberg's experimentation were metal work to
make sorts(which were made by hand at first, then from a mold from which to
cast vast quantities of identical versions of each letter); oil-based ink inspired by
the recent invention of on oil-based pigments in painting; and the technology of
the screw press, which was used for pressing grapes for wine and olives for oil.

The spread of printing in Europe was remarkably rapid. By 1500, printers had
set up shop in 80 Italian cities, with each hoping to turn a profit from applying
the new the technology to books in a broad range of genres, sizes, and prices. We
know of 27,000 books printed before 1500, and no doubt some books were printed
of which no copies have survived. Even with a low estimate for printruns, well
over 10 million books had been printed by 1500.
Of course, some books were never sold. Printing was a high-risk business which
required a lot of up-front investment. As a result, the industry consolidated, with
large printshops running multiple presses simultaneously. Those 80 printing
locations in Italy had contracted to just 11 by the early 16th century, with 80% of
the output being produced by just four of those cities. But the industry also
continued to expand, including to new parts of Europe, and continuously added
new imprints to the accumulating stock of old ones.
Printing interacted with manuscript throughout this time. Printed forms were
meant to be filled in by hand, and printed books to be annotated by readers.
Manuscript was the medium of choice for a variety of genres, including poetry
and prose to share with a small circle of family and friends; music; customized
newsletters; potentially suspect works on religion or politics; or, in the context of
Harvard college in the late 17th century, instructional textbooks.

Transkript 1

Atlas of early printing

About The Atlas

The Atlas of Early Printing is an interactive site designed to be used as a tool for teaching
the early history of printing in Europe during the second half of the fifteenth century. While
printing in Asia pre-dates European activity by several hundred years, the rapid expansion of
the trade following the discovery of printing in Mainz, Germany around the middle of the
fifteenth century is a topic of great importance to the
history of European civilization.
The Atlas is the creation of Greg Prickman, Head
of Special Collections & University Archives at
the University of Iowa Libraries. It is hosted by the
University of Iowa Libraries. Version 2 went online in
2013, and was coded by Andrew Holland, Web
Application Developer for the University of Iowa
Libraries. Preliminary work was done by Steve
Tomblin.
Version 2 of the Atlas was built off of the Google Maps Application Programming Interface
(API) version 3. The timeline is controlled with jQuery UI Slider and a combination of server
side and client side scripting languages. It has been optimized for use on mobile and desktop
platforms.

The Output by Location layer depicts data drawn from the Incunabula Short Title
Catalog (ISTC) at theBritish Library. The layer is a visualization built from all of the date
and location of printing data in the ISTC, and is regularly updated to accurately reflect
ongoing changes in the ISTC's records. Because this data is drawn largely unfiltered from the
ISTC database, it is not an exact representation of the number of printed books in the
fifteenth century. Many editions in this time period were printed without dates, and
assigning a fixed, specific date to their production can be difficult. Therefore, the ISTC date
information in the "Imprint" field often contains more than one date for the printing of a
given title. This uncertainty is carried into the totals for each location and year of printing,
making this layer an approximation rather than an exact representation. The layer is meant
to visualize a large amount of data in terms of time and geography, making the scope and
intensity of printing throughout Europe evident even if there is some variability in the
numbers represented by each circle on the map. There are also some noticeable differences
between the Spread of Printing layer and the Output by Location layer as first instances of
printing appear. This is also due to the variability of dates in the ISTC records. In addition,
the ISTC records surviving copies of books printed in the fifteenth century. As such, it does
not, and cannot, indicate the actual number of books that were printed. For a look at known
edition sizes in the fifteenth century, see Eric White's work hosted by CERL. We are grateful
to John Goldfinch at the British Library and Paul Watry and John Harrison at the
University of Liverpool for their assistance with the ISTC API.

The atlas, along with accompanying material such as the animated printing press model, is
designed to be used as a teaching resource. The map and the information that it depicts
represents data compiled by research using common bibliographic catalogues and databases
for fifteenth century printing, along with secondary sources focusing on each of the
contextual layers of the map. The inspiration for the site comes from the maps of printings
spread found in Berry and Pooles 1966 book The Annals of Printing, and the well-known
maps in Febvre and Martins Lapparition du livre (The Coming of the Book) from 1958.
These sources, and others such as Robert Teichls map Die Wiegendruck in Kartenbild, depict
the spread of printing in Europe largely through a decade by decade progression. The aim of
the Atlas of Early Printing is to take this type of information and allow it to be manipulated,
while also providing contextual information that visually represents the cultural situation
from which printing emerged. Layers can be turned on and off to build a detailed atlas of the
culture and commerce of Europe as masters and journeymen printers ventured to new towns
and markets seeking support and material for the new art of printing.
Fifteenth Century Printing

While few records remain pertaining to the daily

operations of the early printing workshops of 14501500, it is possible to reconstruct a general picture.
Early printing was a complex process involving many
different kinds of materials and skills. In order to print
written material on paper, a printer needed to create or
obtain type, compose the text by arranging the type into
lines of words, placing the arranged type onto a wooden
press, and using this intricate mechanism to apply
pressure on the inked type to impress it into dampened
paper. Print shops housed one or many presses, depending on the size of the operation, with
each press requiring two pressmen for optimal production. The variety of tasks called for
many workers, including typefounders, typesetters or compositors, ink makers, and printers.
It is estimated that the work day consisted of 12-14 hours of grueling physical labor under
poor conditions in comparison to current standards. Estimations about printing output vary,
but it is thought that 300 sheets or 600 folio pages could be printed in a shop each day. In
addition to books, print shops printed ephemera, including broadsides and indulgences.

Type
Designing and casting metal type was often carried out at the print shop during the early
years following the invention of printing. The punch-cutter first carved a letter in reverse and
relief on top of a steel bar. The resulting punch was then struck into a soft metal such as
copper, creating a sunken, right-reading impression, called the matrix. The matrix was fitted
onto a casting instrument and used to cast individual letters. Molten metal, likely an alloy of
lead, tin, antimony, copper, and iron, was poured into the matrix, casting a reverse-reading
letter in relief, situated at the end of the thin piece of metal. Multiple copies of these letters
were cast to assure that a full folio of text could be composed and printed at once. As the art
of printing spread, not all printers could afford cutting their own punches, requiring the
purchase of matrices from larger printing houses before casting their type.

Composing the Type

Before the type was printed, it was assembled into pages, or composed, by compositors who
sat near tilted wooden cases divided into compartments for each letter. It is generally
assumed that four compositors worked on the Gutenberg Bible, and their duties included
setting type, proofing pages, and returning or distributing type back into the cases after
printing.

Following a manuscript text, the compositor placed individual letters onto a small wooden
holder called a composing stick, forming words and sentences. Spaces between words and
sentences were made of metal pieces, called spaces and leads, which were shorter than the
letters and therefore did not print. Once the composing stick was full, the contents were
transferred to a small tray or galley which held the type in waiting. A proof was taken by
inking the type, setting a piece of paper on top of it, and applying pressure with a brush. The
resulting proof was checked for errors, and after all corrections were made, the text was
locked into a frame called the chase.

The Printing Press

Prior to Gutenberg, blocks of image and text were printed by rubbing against paper placed on
a carved, inked woodblock. Early printers instead utilized the wooden screw press, variations
of which were used for printing into the nineteenth century. Although no images of
Gutenbergs original press remain, it may have been modeled after any of the various presses
used for wine, textiles, papermaking, and bookbinding. The wooden press consisted of two
upright slabs joined by horizontal slabs. One of the horizontal slabs, the platen, was situated
underneath a large wooden screw to which lever or bar was attached. Underneath the platen
was a platform, or bed, which held the type and slid back and forth on a carriage. A pull of
the bar turned the screw, lowering the platen onto the type.
Hinged to the press bed was frame called a tympan which protected the damage-prone type
while creating an evenness of pressure. The tympan consisted of inner and outer frames
which held soft cloth covered with vellum or linen. A second hinged frame was attached to
the edge of the tympan. This frame, or frisket, was a protective sheet of parchment with
windows cut out, allowing the type to print while protecting the margins of the paper from
excess ink.

Printing on the Press

Generally, two or more pressmen worked at one press. First they placed the block of text in
its chase, or forme, onto the press bed. A pressman called the beater inked the forme with
thick ink composed of varnish and lamp black, applied in circular motions using leather balls
stuffed with wool or horsehair. The dampened paper was attached to points jutting out of the
tympan, the frisket was folded over the paper, and the tympan then folded over the forme.
The entire press bed was pushed into place under the platen, and the bar was pulled by the
other printer or puller. This action lowered the platen onto the forme, creating an impression
of type on paper. In some cases, one folio was printed, the forme was turned around, and the
other printed, while in others, both folios were printed at once. The printers then opened the
hinged tympan, removed the printed sheet, and stacked it carefully on top of the others, to

await printing on the reverse side. Upon completion of printing, the paper was dried under
weight then likely hung on lines for a final airing.

The Fifteenth Century Book

A comprehensive understanding of the features of fifteenth century printed
books can only be gained through the physical examination of many copies.
However, a great deal can be learned by looking at even one single copy of a
book. The amount of historical evidence and context that can be obtained
from a copy of a book is remarkable, and demonstrates the wealth of
valuable information antiquarian books hold for scholars and students to discover today.
The books that were produced by the early printers in Europe during the late fifteenth
century can provide specific and comprehensive evidence of how printing was practiced
and how books were read and used. This essay examines a book from the collections at
the University of Iowa, a 1490 copy of Scriptores Historiae Augustae, and uses it to
highlight the many pieces of historical information that can be discovered through the
study of a single incunabula (a book printed in the fifteenth century).
The first books printed after the invention of moveable type and the printing press are in
many ways similar to the books we are familiar with today. They are in the form of a
codex - folded sheets of paper grouped in ordered gatherings that are sewn together on
the spine and covered in paper, boards, leather, or other materials. A fifteenth century
printed book is used the same way a twenty first century printed book is used, but the
history of its creation, transmission, manufacture, and reading is often quite complex, as
can be seen in a study, organized by date, of the Historia Augusta.
Ninth Century: The Text
1480s: The Printer
1490: Printing the Scriptores Historiae Augustae
1490s: Binding
1490s: Decoration
1490 - 1874: Ownership - Marcus Perfumus/Pillone Library
1874 - 1960s: Ownership - Sir Thomas Brook/University of Iowa

Transkript 2 (early printed book)

The physical book

Early printed books are wonderfully rich sources to study. Very often, the content
of early modern books can be read only in this one location, because they have

never been translated or reprinted later. Even when the text was reprinted later,
like in a modern edition, the early printed book presents the text in unique ways,
with various paratexts like prefaces, dedications, indexes, or notes that can tell us
about the historical circumstances in which the book was produced, as well as
why it was produced.
The physical aspects of a book contain valuable clues about how a book was
made, how it was read and used, and how it has come down to us. This
information can help us better understand what the book and its text meant in
the past, both at the time it was made and at the times after that when it was
used.
Of course, what has come down to us -- copies of books and clues in books -- are
only small fragments that remain from all the books that were made and used in
earlier centuries. Many uses of books do not leave traces -- most users don't write
in their books -- and most copies of early printed books do not survive. Those
copies that do survive, though, are well-made books whose paper is very high
quality by today's standards, and it is impressive how good they look now if they
were well-cared-for, as large expensive books often were.

As we look at the books we're so lucky to have now, we should also keep in mind
what we're missing.
Old books were also often considered useless after a while, and they were reused
for the paper they were written on. Sometimes they were used to wrap things, to
start fires, to serve in the bindings of other books, in which case they might
actually survive as a part of another object.
A book that has survived the hundreds of years between its initial creation and
the present has been the beneficiary of many individuals and institutions who
consciously decided (over and over again) to save them. They also had to escape
catastrophes like fire, flood, and war.

Transkript 3

Print and manuscript

Print did not make manuscript obsolete, but why did people continue to bother
with manuscripts when a printed book generally made texts available more
cheaply? Some manuscripts made in the age of print were luxury items, which
held appeal as objects of prestige and beauty, to show off one's wealth, or to create
an heirloom. But other manuscripts were plain and functional: hand copying
remained a practical way of getting a copy of a text when a printed copy was hard
to find or too expensive, or when the printed text had been banned for religious or
political reasons. The act of copying was also considered a valuable method of
learning for students.
Additionally, in the early years of printing, some people worried that paper
wouldn't last very long compared to parchment, which was considered to be of
higher quality. No doubt paper will decay faster than parchment, but we're well
past the 400 year mark on several of the books you see in this module, and the
paper isn't decaying yet!

Transkript 4- French Bible Historiale

Transkript 5- Production of an Early Modern Printed Book

Transkript 6- Cicero's "De Officiis": Discussion

Student manuscript
Transkript7- Manuscript course books from Harvard 1680-1729

Printing, Publication, and Distribution

The most important difference between manuscript and print is not visible from
looking at individual surviving copies. We need to think instead about how many
such copies once existed. How many manuscripts were produced just like this
one? How can we know how many manuscripts were produced of this text? How
many copies of the printed book were produced?
Printruns are generally not known exactly. But every time even just one printed
copy survives, we know it had siblings originally, though we may not know how
many exactly.
There is such an investment required to print a book that it wouldn't be viable to
print just one copy: why bother making the metal type, getting a giant heavy
printing press, a specialist to set the type, another to proofread, and a brawny
person to pull the bar just once? You print because you're making multiple copies
-- a lot of them. The more copies you make, the more the initial investment pays
off, but if you print way too many -- you have paid for all that paper, but you can't
sell your books -- you go out of business.
So, it's a delicate calculation that each printer makes about the each book: how
well is it likely to sell?
One early printed book mentioned in the colophon that it was printed in 300
copies. We find that today in limited run collector's editions, which often contain
a note saying that "X" copies were printed, and that this is copy number "Y." This
is one valuable piece of evidence on early printing: 300 copies was a reasonable
number for a printrun in the 15th century.
By the later 16th century, we have another kind of evidence: business records
from a major Antwerp printer, Christophe Plantin. From that archival evidence,
we learn that 1000 copies was a common printrun, though some items expected to
sell very well were printed in greater quantities.

What is the impact of sharing the initial investment across hundreds of copies?
The upside is that each copy is much less expensive than if it were produced by
hand. The downside for the printer is the need to sell all these books that no one
asked for.
Manuscripts were often commissioned: you'd pay someone in advance to do the
work and you'd wait until it was done -- easily a year or more, depending on the
size and production values of the book (for example illuminations were especially
time-consuming and costly).
Also, a printer needs to advertise his book. There were probably list of books for
sale, and flyers advertising them, but almost none of these survive. The key
advertising is on the book itself: the preface explains how great the book is, while
the index helps you see what's in the book and how useful it is. Also important is
added value, or why a book is superior to earlier editions. Title pages often boast
that this edition is bigger and better, more corrected, with a better index, et
cetera.

Transkript 8- Indulgences
Uncut indulgences (1485) and Indulgence issued by Henry VIII in
London (1511) and Gutenberg Bible

Transkript 9- Rules and Regulations for the Early Modern

Printed Book

Transkript 10- Example of Early Censorship

Illustrated Science
Transkript 11- Leonhart Fuchs, De Historia Stirpium (1542)
and Primi de Stirpivm Historia (1545)

Transkript 12- Petrus Apianus, Astronomicum Caesareum

(1540)

Transkript 13-continued

Transkript 14- Pierre Belon, De Aquatilibus Libri (1553)

Article- librarians work

Islamic manuscripts
Over the centuries since Muhammad was commanded to Recite! in the opening
words of the Qurn, this holy book has been at the center of the Islamic
community. Generations of Muslims have memorized the text, and copies of the
book are among the most splendid examples of Islamic art. However, Qurns
represent just a fraction of overall book production in the pre-modern era.
Muslim book production spanned dozens of genres, reflecting the thriving
intellectual and cultural milieux of the premodern Middle East. Until the
nineteenth century, almost all Islamic books were copied by hand.
Print was used by non-Islamic communities in the Middle East as early as the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. However, printing in the Arabic script presents

unique challenges. Typesetting Arabic requires approximately 400 pieces of type,

or sorts, in order to account for all the ligatures. Even when properly assembled,
the resulting text was less aesthetically pleasing for someone who was
accustomed to hand-written books. In addition, literacy was limited, especially
outside of cities. Thus, print was not economical until the advent of lithography,
when the look of handwriting could be better reproduced, and until governments
were willing to subsidize the use of print.
Although there were highly trained scribes and calligraphers, it wasnt
uncommon for people to copy their own books. Compilations,
called majmuas (mecmuas), were very common in the Islamic Middle East. When
manuscript is the technology of reproduction, you can choose which parts of a
book you need and just copy those. Readers could copy their own texts.
The written book was an invaluable support for the transmission of knowledge,
but the oral and person-to-person component was considered very important. The
importance of orality was not limited to scholarly circles; poetry was often
published first orally, when it was recited in salons, and those present would
copy it down into their notebooks.
Readers devised many strategies to ensure that their books were sound. For
example, they collated their copies against other, more reliable copies. Some
libraries were stocked with reliable copies of books for precisely this purpose.
Nota Bene: This presentation focuses on Islamic books from the Middle East. In
fact, Islamic book production stretched from todays Spain to Indonesia, and
Middle Eastern book production included many vibrant non-Muslim book
cultures.

Transkript 15,16-Islamic Manuscript Discussion

Printing in East Asia

While printing was spreading for the first time in Europe in the 15th and 16th
centuries, printing was already a centuries-old technology in East Asia. East
Asian printing mostly used carved wooden blocks, but also included some books
produced by moveable type for the Chinese characters -- all well before
Gutenberg. As a result, the book culture of early modern China, Japan and Korea
was rich in printed books and manuscripts across many scripts, languages, and
genres.
By the 15th century, printing in China was a long-established and fully-developed
technology. The Chinese invented woodblock printing to produce books in the 8th
century. In the early centuries printing was used mostly to reproduce Buddhist
religious texts. A first printing boom began in the 12th century with the rise of
government publications, of scholarly publications (especially the Confucian
classics and commentaries on them) and of early commercial publications, such
as manuals that helped students prepare for the demanding civil service
examinations. The 16th century was a period of further expansion of commercial
printing into all kinds of genres for entertainment, instruction, history and
commemoration.
The main technology of book production in East Asia was xylography, or
printing by woodblock: it was invented in the 8th century and remained the most
common form of book production through the 19th century when lithography was
introduced from the West. Chinese woodblock printing process consists of four
main stages preparing the block, transcribing the text, carving the block, and

printing onto paper. After that the books were bound into soft cover volumes and
stored in a case holding the multiple volumes usually needed for one book.
You start with a block of wood, usually pear or jujube; these hard and oily woods
allow for clearer printing and longer preservation of the blocks and with a copy of
the text in the style and layout desired for the printed book. Then you transcribe
the text onto a paper sheet, with lines on that delineate columns and rows for the
characters. That transcription sheet is sent to the wood carver who turns the
sheet over and attaches it to his block, then carves out all the white spaces,
leaving the wood in relief for all the characters and the marginal and column
lines on the pages. Once the carved surface is planed and smoothed, it is ready to
print from. The ink is applied to the block with a brush and a sheet of paper is
rapidly pressed on it. A skilled printer could produce 2000 pages in a day in this
way, which can then be folded. The pages are then assembled and sewn together
into fascicles, and a box is made to store them.

Woodblocks could be used for many more reprintings, maybe tens of thousands
more, until the block is worn out beyond repair. Because of this, it is easy to
reprint from the original blocks long after the first printing as long as they are
stored carefully. The carved woodblocks, dried after use, are preserved in
storehouse and new copies from the blocks can be reprinted on demand. With
letterpress printing this isn't possible: you need each of the individual letter types
used to print one sheet, for the next sheet, so you have only one chance to print off
copies of one sheet. If you decide afterward that you want more copies, you need
to set the type all over again. By contrast, reprinting in Chinese xylography does
not require re-composition as in letterpress printing. It's almost like print on
demand today, as long as you save the blocks in good condition. If necessary too,
you can make little changes in directly on the woodblock, carving out the wrong
character and wedging a type in with the correct character on, or removing
something altogether. Woodblocks of illustrations and even some texts can be
recycled and reused to produce different books. Reprinting in Chinese xylography
is much easier and thus cheaper than in letterpress printing.

Xylography was optimally suited to East Asian printing. In woodblock printing,

the tools were inexpensive and portable, blocks could be carved wherever there
was wood (and even by someone who was illiterate once the manuscript had been
copied). Printing, and later reprinting, were not particularly expensive, and were
manageable as a small-scale business. Printing started much earlier in East Asia
than in Europe, though it spread much more gradually. By the 16th century,
though, printing in China had spread to all genres of writing and achieved an
impact comparable to its European counterpart.

Transkript 17,19-Xylography