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Johannes Gutenberg was a German goldsmith and inventor best known for the Gutenberg
press, an innovative printing machine that used movable type.
Gutenberg was born between 1394 and 1400 and died in 1468.
The Gutenberg press with its wooden and later metal movable type printing brought down
the price of printed materials and made such materials available for the masses. It remained
the standard until the 20th century. The Gutenberg printing press developed from the
technology of the screw-type wine presses of the Rhine Valley. It was there in 1440 that
Johannes Gutenberg created his printing press, a hand press, in which ink was rolled over
the raised surfaces of movable handset block letters held within a wooden form and the
form was then pressed against a sheet of paper.
The printing press was invented by the German Johannes Gutenberg in the Roman Empire
around 1440. Gutenbergs press was a hand cranked press that rolled ink over the raised
surfaces of movable metal type and pressed against a sheet of paper. Prior to the printing
press all texts had to be hand written or done by typographic hand-printing, which could
produce about 40 to 50 pages per day. The earliest printing press could produce 3,600 pages
per day, dramatically increasing the amount of printed text available to the world. By the
year 1500, printing presses had produced over 20 million volumes of text. The printing
press opened the door for the mass production of books, and lead to the widespread sharing
of knowledge around the world. For the first time the average person had access to books
and the knowledge they brought with them. The printing press has been considered one of
the most important inventions in human history. The first major book printed by the press
was the Gutenberg Bible and was completed in 1454.
Gutenberg's merit was perfect for existing printing techniques, he cast in metal each of the
letters of the alphabet separately, and a system to put a continuation of another and hold
them. This way you can compose the pages faster and reuse the molds to compose others.
To reproduce the drawings they are still using the woodcut and later painted by hand.
In 1452 begins the printing of the most important work in the world of printing, the "42-line
Bible" or "Gutenberg Bible", marking the beginning of the Age of Printing. In 1455
Gutenberg is about to finish the 150 bibles compromised, but Fust does not want to extend
the term of the credit and ends up getting the rights of the business. At the head of the
printing press he put his nephew Peter Schffer, who had worked as an apprentice of
Gutenberg and knew the secrets of the invention of printing.
Gutenberg naci entre 1394 y 1400 y muri en 1468. Johannes Gutenberg invent la prensa
con letras de madera o metal reemplazables / mviles en 1436 (completado en 1440). Este
mtodo de impresin puede atribuirse no slo a una revolucin en la produccin de libros,
sino tambin a fomentar el rpido desarrollo de las ciencias, las artes y la religin a travs
de la transmisin de textos.
El mrito de Gutenberg fue perfecto para las tcnicas de impresin existentes, fundi en
metal cada una de las letras del alfabeto por separado, y un sistema para poner una
continuacin de otra y sujetarlas. De esta forma se puede componer ms rpido las pginas
y reutilizar los moldes para componer otras. Para reproducir los dibujos se siguen usando la
xilografa y posteriormente se pintaban a mano.
En 1452 se inicia la impresin de la obra ms importante en el mundo de la impresin, la
Biblia de 42 lneas o Biblia de Gutenberg, marcando el inicio de la Edad de la
Imprenta. En 1455 Gutenberg est a punto de acabar las 150 biblias comprometidas, pero
Fust no quiere ampliarle el plazo del crdito y acaba quedndose con los derechos del
negocio. Al frente de la imprenta puso a su sobrino Peter Schffer, que haba trabajado
como aprendiz de Gutenberg y conoca los secretos del invento de la imprenta.