Gutenberg's printing press and the first printed Bible

Date

c. 1440–1455 CE

Category

Science, technology & invention

Region

Holy Roman Empire (Mainz, Germany)

Era

Post-Classical / Medieval

Significance

In the German city of Mainz around 1440 to 1450 the goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg developed a system of printing with reusable cast-metal movable type, combining a durable type-metal alloy, oil-based ink and an adapted screw press into a practical method for mass-producing texts.

The crowning demonstration was the Gutenberg Bible, an edition of the Latin Vulgate completed around 1454 to 1455 in roughly 180 copies, the first major book printed in Europe with movable metal type. The technology spread with astonishing speed: within fifty years printing presses operated in hundreds of European towns and had produced millions of books, the so-called incunabula. By drastically lowering the cost and increasing the availability of the written word, the press accelerated literacy, standardised texts, and enabled the rapid circulation of ideas across the continent. Its consequences were profound and lasting, fuelling Renaissance humanist scholarship, the Scientific Revolution, and above all the Protestant Reformation, whose tracts and vernacular Bibles reached unprecedented audiences. Gutenberg's invention is widely regarded as one of the most transformative developments of the second millennium, marking the threshold between the medieval manuscript world and the modern age of print and mass communication.

Empires active in c. 1440–1455 CE

• Malacca Sultanate
  1400 CE – 1511 CE
• Aztec Empire
  1428 CE – 1521 CE
• Inca Empire
  1438 CE – 1533 CE
• Ming Dynasty
  1368 CE – 1644 CE
• Kanem-Bornu Empire
  700 CE – 1900 CE
• Ottoman Empire
  1299 CE – 1922 CE

Related science, technology & invention events

• The print revolution spreads across Europe
  by 1500
• Ulugh Beg's Samarkand Observatory and the Zij-i Sultani Star Catalogue
  c. 1428 (observatory); Zij-i Sultani completed 1438-1439
• Madhava and the Kerala School develop infinite series
  c. 1400
• Jikji printed in Korea, oldest extant book made with movable metal type
  July 1377
• Ibn al-Nafis Describes the Pulmonary Circulation of the Blood
  c. 1242 CE
• Al-Jazari Completes the Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices
  1206 CE

Further reading

The Gutenberg Revolution: How Printing Changed the Course of History

If you read one book

The Gutenberg Revolution: How Printing Changed the Course of History

John Man

Accessible story of Gutenberg and the printed book.

Get it on Amazon →

Also worth reading

• The Book in the Renaissance — Andrew PettegreeAmazon →

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