Johann Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg (German: Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg; between 1397 and 1400, Mainz - February 3, 1468, Mainz) was a German jeweler and inventor. In the mid-1440s, he created the European method of movable type printing, which spread throughout the world.

Biography
Due to very limited number surviving documentary sources concerning Gutenberg, there is no way to reconstruct his coherent biography. During the years of his life, as a rule, only prominent political figures and church leaders were honored with a biography recorded in any sources. Gutenberg was a production worker, partly an artist, and therefore of little interest. However, his invention nevertheless contributed to the fact that some facts about his life were recorded in the book responses of that time.

1400-1448. Early activities
Johann (Johann - Henne, Hengin, Hanssen) Gutenberg was born in the family of the Mainz patrician Friel Gensfleisch and Elsa Wirich. Patricians in Medieval Germany called citizens belonging to the upper strata of the urban burghers. The mother belonged to a family of cloth merchants, so the marriage of Johann's parents, concluded in 1386, was a misalliance. Mainz was a very important city, since it was here that the archbishop of the German church, the elector, was elected. The city was one of many cities where clashes between the patriciate and the workshops took place, which forced the Johann family to temporarily leave the city during periods of defeat of the patriciate.

Gutenberg's ancestors in Mainz can be traced back to the first half of the fourteenth century. Gensfleisch comes from the name of the estate acquired by the family. In turn, the surname Gutenberg similarly comes from the name of the farmstead Gutenberghof, which belonged to Gutenberg's father in Mainz. It is not clear whether Gutenberg was a knight, which is very important in Gutenberg studies, since belonging to the patricians in Germany did not mean belonging to the knighthood. In favor given assumption two sources testify: the ordinance of the French king Charles VII and the Venetian chronicle of 1483. However, the origin of the mother and the way Gutenberg's occupations conflict with the possibility of having a knighthood.

The exact date of Gutenberg's birth is not known, as there are no records of his baptism. It is known that he was the youngest of the children in the family (he had an older brother, Frile, a sister, Elsa, and a half-sister, Patze). Presumably, the time of his birth falls on 1395-1400, sometimes June 24, 1400, the day of John the Baptist, is conventionally considered his birthday. The place of his birth is also not known for certain. The forced expulsions of the family from the city may have been the reason that Johann could have been born in Strasbourg, as several sources attest, although he was considered a citizen of Mainz.

Nothing is known about Johann's childhood and youth. Based on the available facts, the researchers make the assumption that he studied at school, and later learned the basics of handicraft. It is known that in Strasbourg Gutenberg was engaged in teaching jewelry, but for this he had to have the title of master, which means the highest degree professional skills. However, where, how and from whom the future inventor learned the basics of craftsmanship remains unknown. Before 1434, little is known about the life of Gutenberg, it is impossible to judge what he did during this period for certain.

From 1434 to 1444 he lived in Strasbourg, polishing semi-precious stones (agate, onyx) and making mirrors. Presumably, in the same place he was engaged in experimental activities in book printing. In 1438, together with his student Andreas Dritzen and others, he founded a partnership in Strasbourg on shares for the manufacture of mirrors, as well as for the commercial implementation of some secret "enterprise with art" (Afentur mit der kunst). The activities of the partnership ended with the process brought against Gutenberg by the heirs of Dritzen after the death of Andreas and which in 1439 was won by Gutenberg.

Some expressions of the acts of process associated with this enterprise suggest that at this time Gutenberg had already advanced in his invention. characteristic feature is that everything related to the technical side of Gutenberg’s work was the strictest guarded secret and is often referred to in the trial materials as “this work”, “do this”, etc. It is impossible to get a clear idea of ​​\u200b\u200bwhat she was doing from court records Gutenberg workshop, only individual words, accidentally flashing in the protocols of the testimony of witnesses, allow us to assume that by this time the inventor was already on the verge of discovery. The texts refer to the press, lead, mold casting, "embossing" or "printing". An analysis of the case materials allows us to judge that in 1438-39 Gutenberg had a certain press, possibly a prototype. Molds were being cast, but were they already letters? Probably at this time Gutenberg had already created a structure, a tool with which it was possible to cast letters. He stood on the threshold practical application of his invention, but the death of a companion delayed this moment, since some parts of the design remained with the heirs of Andreas.

Most researchers of the 15th century believed that Gutenberg made the final invention of printing in 1440, although no literature has been found printed and dated from this year. The assumption of 1440 as the starting point of modern printing is confirmed by documents extracted from the files of the Avignon notaries and published in 1890 by Abbé Requin (Requin, "L'imprimerie à Avignon en 1444"). From these documents it can be seen that in 1444 and 1446 a certain Procopius Waldfogel entered into transactions with various persons whom he initiated into the secret of "artificial writing" for money and other benefits. It has been suggested that Waldfogel and Gutenberg are the same person, but this cannot be confirmed.

It is likely that some time after the lawsuit, Gutenberg's invention was already being put to practical use in Strasbourg. The absence of surviving editions from that period may indicate that for the most part popular products were produced, which always had the least chance of being preserved and surviving.

1448-1455. The invention of printing
Gutenberg's ingenious invention consisted in the fact that he made "movable" raised letters from metal, cut into reverse(in mirror image), typed lines from them and, using a special press, imprinted on paper. However, he lacked the funds to exploit his invention.

Having moved to his native Mainz in 1448, Gutenberg in 1450 entered into an agreement with the Mainz businessman, apparently the usurer Johann Fust, by virtue of which he lent him 800 guilders out of 6% and, in addition, undertook to issue 800 guilders annually for the needs of production (paints, paper and other consumables); the printing house with all its accessories was to be divided in half between Gutenberg and Fust. Gutenberg received the main capital, however, in parts. From the issuance of working capital, Fust completely avoided, and under an additional agreement of 1452, for a lump sum payment of 800 guilders, he was exempted from annual contributions.

Bible Gutenberg. A copy from the museum in Mainz
With such limited funds Lacking experienced workers or improved tools, Gutenberg nevertheless made significant strides. Until 1456, he cast at least five different types, printed the Latin grammar of Aelius Donatus (several sheets of it have survived to this day and are kept in the National Library in Paris), several papal indulgences and, finally, two Bibles, 36-line and 42-line ; the last, known as the Mazarin Bible, was printed between 1453 and 1455.

Johannes Gutenberg was unable to pay Fust interest, and Fust went to court. The process ended with the oath of Fust, about which a protocol was drawn up, recorded by the notary Helmasberger on November 6, 1455; the original of this act, so important for Gutenberg's preservation of the name of the inventor of printing, was discovered in the 19th century by Karl Dziatzko in the library of the University of Göttingen (K. Dziatzko, "Sammlung bibliothekwissenschaftlicher Arbeiten" 1889 et seq.). By court order, the printing house with all its accessories passed to Fust, and Gutenberg had to start the business from scratch.

1455-1468. Activities after the trial
He entered into a company with Conrad Goumeri and in 1460 published the work of Johann Balbus of Genoa (1286), "Katolikon" (Latin grammar with a dictionary). In 1465, Elector Adolf took Gutenberg into service, but on February 3, 1468, the printer died; he was buried in Mainz, but today the location of his grave is unknown. Some sources claim that his tomb is in the Franciscan cemetery.

Authorship of the invention
Gutenberg's invention was attributed to different time different persons(see Typography). The truth was finally restored by Anthony van der Linde in the work of 1878 (in Russia - see the article by F. I. Bulgakov in "Bibliographic Notes" 1892, No. 1).

Gutenberg studies
A very significant number of scientific and popular works are devoted to the study of Gutenberg's life, his personality, the facts of his biography and his significance for the history of printing and history in general. By the middle of the twentieth century, the number of essays on the Gutenberg theme already exceeded three thousand units, and in the future it only increased. The revolutionary nature of Gutenberg's invention made him, on the one hand, a popular subject of research, which contributed to the development of knowledge about him and about historical period in which he lived. On the other hand, the extraordinary importance of the moment when printing began prompted some researchers to interpret the facts not in the most correct way in an attempt to attribute the invention to other persons, to challenge the place of origin of printing and other distortions, in the hope of benefiting from such important event in world history.

Attempts to “take away” the authorship of the invention from Gutenberg began almost during his lifetime. From the very beginning, there was a dispute about which city should be considered the cradle of printing: Mainz or Strasbourg? Who actually made such an important shift in world history: Johann Fust and Peter Schaeffer, Johann Mentelin? Or was it someone in China who discovered the printed book?

In Germany, for a long time, Gutenberg was considered only an assistant to supposedly true inventors - Fust and Schaeffer. This view was supported by many (in particular, Johann Gottsched). Despite the fact that the primacy of Gutenberg was confirmed back in the eighteenth century (D. Koehler, D. Shepflin), both Mentelin and Fust are still mentioned in this regard, although already mostly in a non-scientific environment.

The main problem in Gutenberg studies is the lack of books published by Gutenberg, in which his colophon (a mark on old books about the author, time and place of publication) would be present. The fact that the book was published by Gutenberg is confirmed only with the help of minor signs, of which the font used in printing is the key. To this main problem, side ones are added: a small amount of documentary evidence (there are only 34 certificates about Gutenberg), the absence of personal correspondence, records, and the absence of a reliable portrait.

Identification of ancient printed books by type is a well-known practice in the field of historical book science. At the inception of printing, almost every publisher found his own font, thanks to which it is possible, even from nameless fragments, to find out which printer's hand this or that page belongs to. In Guterbeng studies, the typological method played essential role. It was with his help that the legacy of Gutenberg was established.

Another significant factor in trying to study the history of the famous German was the desire to create a kind of “legend” out of him, to build his image in such a way that it corresponded to the role assigned to him in history. In the nineteenth century, such a legend was successfully created. Gutenberg was presented as an educated representative of the elite, carried away by the idea of ​​enlightenment, who, observing his financial interests, gave his strength to the development of printing. However, compiled under this legend, the image did not stand the test of time, which led to a split in Gutenberg studies at the beginning of the twentieth century. Too much focus on various aspects the life of the inventor led to distortions: sometimes the issue of a mercantile nature was put at the forefront of research, only monetary aspects of activity were taken into account, sometimes all attention was focused on questions of origin, confirmation of Gutenberg's belonging to the elite classes. Some researchers focused entirely on the analysis of fonts, which paid off, but, again, led to a too narrow view of the problem as a whole.

A group of researchers (Otto Hupp (Eng. Otto Hupp), Paul Schwenke (German Paul Schwenke)) saw in Gutenberg only the most talented practitioner, the creator of the first skillful fonts, who was only a typographer and was not in any way concerned about the goals of education. Johann Heinrich Zedler's view of Gutenberg was even more limited. In his mind, he was only technically an educated person, who created one of the first printed books, and, due to the novelty of technology for his time, Zedler considered these publications to be very imperfect, especially in comparison with further developments in this area. This point of view fit in well with the idea of ​​Gutenberg as an instrument, an integral part in the mechanism of historical development, the appearance of which was predetermined by the laws of history.

“... the long and bitter dispute about the real inventor of printing will never be resolved ... Gutenberg made the last in this direction decisive step with the greatest courage and clarity, and thanks to this with greatest success... It only means that he was the best able to sum up the accumulated experience and all the unsuccessful or semi-successful attempts of his predecessors. And this does not detract from his merits; his merit remains immortal... but it is not a new unknown plant that he planted in earthly soil, but only successfully plucked a slowly ripened fruit.
Franz Mering. From the work "On historical materialism" »
Viewing Gutenberg's contribution from this perspective has spurred the development of research on the technical background of the invention, and this aspect has received proper disclosure (works by Victor Scholderer, Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, etc.), although it took almost a hundred years of exploration. However, the shift in focus from personality to historical reasons again led to involuntary distortions.

Often main reason the advent of printing was called predestination economic development. The origin and development of capitalism required an increase in the level of knowledge, the instrument of which was printing. When the image of Gutenberg as a public educator showed its one-sidedness, the image of Gutenberg as a businessman appeared. In an attempt to find an answer to the question of what motivated this man, the desire for personal gain, understandable to many, was cited to justify his motives: new times dictated new mores, and the idea of ​​a businessman trying to use a fresh invention for own benefit found its supporters. Given the documented fact that Gutenberg’s business was not going well at all, and bankruptcy followed later on, Gutenberg as a person began to be assessed noticeably in a degrading way, as an unsuccessful businessman or as an unsuccessful artist who failed to achieve even the slightest success.

The image of Gutenberg the businessman managed to resolve the contradictions caused by the fact that publications of very wide range, from highly spiritual to "fair literature". However, the key question this approach unable to give an acceptable answer. Opinions that have been expressed that Gutenberg may not even have realized the significance of his invention are hardly true, since any major personality who inspired revolutionary changes in the history of mankind, is, as a rule, the concentration of the main conflicts of its time and, because of this, cannot be a person limited, closed within the framework of narrow personal interests.

Russian (Soviet) Gutenberg studies began to develop for the most part in connection with what was noted in public life, as well as in scientific world 500th anniversary of the invention of the printing press (celebrated in 1940). Until that time, there were no serious studies, Gutenberg and his invention were mentioned only for popularization purposes. The first story about Gutenberg was information from the book “On the Inventors of Things” (De Inventoribus Rerum) translated in 1720 by Polydor Virgil of Urbinsky. An obstacle to the development of Gutenberg studies was the lack of documents on this topic in the country and little interest scientific community. The celebrated anniversary was able to raise this interest in post-war years more noticeable development of this topic began. The first notable contribution was made by the Leningrad historian Vladimir Lyublinsky, then translations into Russian of historical Gutenberg documents began to appear, and the first dissertations on this topic were presented.

Johannes Gutenberg

Johannes Gutenberg (Heinzfleisch) was born in noble family in Mainz not earlier than 1394 and not later than 1399. June 24, 1400 is conventionally considered the date of birth of Gutenberg for anniversaries. He was a well-known, and hereditary, jeweler, he knew how to grind precious stones, cast jewelry from noble metals, make golden frames for mirrors. It would seem, earn as much as you can and enjoy life. But Gutenberg had a dream. He wanted to print books.

Printing press Gutenberg

In 1440, Gutenberg made a real revolution in printing by inventing a movable type - separate letters that made it possible to type the most different texts. The very first printed book is considered to be the so-called "Sibylline Book" (a poem in German), the publication of which the researchers attribute to approximately the end of 1445. Hence the invention of printing can be dated no later than 1445. The work was carried out with the strictest secrecy: the invention undermined the foundations of the activities of scribes, who were able to do anything to keep their craft. The clergy also had to be feared, in whose hands there was a monopoly on reading and writing. In addition, the news of a new method of making books would immediately lead to a drop in their value. Therefore, Gutenberg's books, as, indeed, all the first books, imitated Gothic manuscripts, they were even passed off as handwritten.

Until 1456, with virtually no material support on the other hand, he cast at least five different fonts, printed the Latin grammar of Aelius Donatus (several sheets of it have come down to us and are kept in the National Library in Paris), several papal indulgences and two Bibles, 36-line and 42-line. After that, Gutenberg, by a court decision, was forced to give the printing house to an unscrupulous companion, a man who practically did not sponsor the activities of the printer, but who tried to squeeze every possible extra penny out of the Gutenberg printing house for himself.

Gutenberg had to start from scratch. In 1460, he succeeded in publishing a work by Johann Balbus of Genoa called "Catholicon" (Latin grammar with dictionary). Gutenberg died in 1468 not the most successful businessman, but a man who forever changed the history of the world thanks to the invention of printing. His invention quickly spread throughout Europe. Already by 1500, printing houses were operating in more than 200 cities. various countries, while the total number of printing houses approached 2000.

Page from "Catholicon"

There are no real, reliable images of Gutenberg. All his portraits belong to a later time and are the fruit of the imagination of artists.

In addition to the font, Gutenberg also owns other inventions: a press for printing letters; thick black opaque printing ink, convenient for applying to dozens of tiny letters; an alloy for casting individual elements of the font - not too soft, but not too hard, thanks to which the font was not fragile, but durable; a type-casting hand-held device, which ensured the standard character of the letter and the mass character of its production. The device was a hollow metal rod with a removable bottom wall made of soft metal, on which a letter pattern was embossed using a hard punch - a punch. The font was carved using the smallest tools (that's where Gutenberg's skill as a cutter came in handy!). The inventive genius of Gutenberg gave life to both the grid (since then, all the modular elements of the type were placed and limited by the space of the frame), and various types of type, thanks to the possibility of mechanical reproduction of letters. Thus, grid and type, the two main components of graphic design, have been used for over 500 years!

Thus, Johannes Gutenberg is credited with creating the entire typographic process as a whole. For the 15th century, his invention was more than innovative, and the letter became the first standard part in the history of world technology.

The famous work of Gutenberg is a printed 42-line Bible (the so-called Mazarin Bible). This is the only book authentically published by Gutenberg, printed in Mainz around 1450. Its design goes back to handwritten biblical texts that were in circulation at that time. This was reflected, first of all, in the division of the page into two columns and in the forms of letters in the style of German "black", or Gothic writing. Hand-drawn elements of climbing plants were added later - to enhance the decorative effect. The layout mimics the handwriting style, but it has been transformed by means of graphic design - using an ordered, unified font, placed within the boundaries of the grid.

Opening of the Gutenberg Bible

Johann Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg (between 1397 and 1400, Mainz - February 3, 1468, Mainz) - German jeweler and inventor. In the mid-1440s, he created the European method of movable type printing, which spread throughout the world.
Biography
The first half of the 15th century was a period the heyday handwritten books. The thirst for reading was so great among the urban population that there were several thousand copyists in Paris alone, and yet there was a catastrophic shortage of books. Hundreds of people were looking for a cheaper and easier way to make books. He was found Johannes Gutenberg. Thanks to his discovery, humanity received a giant impetus in its development. The invention of printing played huge role in the dissemination of a new, young bourgeois culture, science and secular literature.
Johannes Gutenberg was born into a noble family in Mainz not earlier than 1394 and not later than 1399. June 24, 1400 is conventionally considered the date of birth of Gutenberg for anniversaries. His parents, local aristocrats, waged a fierce struggle in Mainz with small artisans. After seizing power latest family Heinzfleishev left the city in 1411. The years of exile began. All this time, Johann lived in Strasbourg with his parents. Finally, the warring parties reached an agreement. Johann returned to Mainz at the end of the twenties as a well-known goldsmith. He knew how to grind precious stones, cast jewelry from precious metals, and make golden frames for mirrors. It seemed that everything was going well in his life. But Johann dreams of creating a printing press. His father didn't like it. The quarrel was so strong that Johann abandoned his father's surname and took as surname name of the mother's family estate - Gutenberg. In all likelihood, at the beginning of 1429, Johann left Mainz. In the future, he mainly lives in Strasbourg, which is confirmed by the documents of several litigation. In 1438, Gutenberg entered into an agreement with the Strasbourg citizens A. Dritzen, A. Heilman and G. Riffe on the joint commercial use of some of his inventions, which was kept secret. In 1439 Gutenberg sued one of his companions. Money was at issue. The court ended safely for the master, but then one of the partners died, and the equipment disappeared. The materials of this process, in which lead, molds, presses, etc. appear, made it possible in the nineteenth century to accurately establish the priority of the discovery of printing in Europe behind Gutenberg. By this time in Europe there was already known a way to reproduce texts from wooden boards by hand, the so-called woodcut. It was invented in China, but this method was no more productive than handwritten. Something fundamentally new was required. And this new one was a set of individual letters. The idea itself is quite simple.
It was more difficult to figure out how to make these letters exactly the same and in large numbers, how to use them and use them repeatedly, that is, it was necessary to invent a method of printing as a whole. This is exactly what Johannes Gutenberg did when he returned to Mainz around 1444. In any case, there is no evidence of the creation of a printing house in the Strasbourg period. He first learned to cast letters suitable for typesetting. Gutenberg made a model of a convex letter - a punch - out of hard metal. He pressed the punch into soft metal and received a deepened form of a letter - a matrix. He inserted the matrix into the bottom of the type-casting device, poured molten metal and after cooling it received metal letters - letters. Lines were made up of letters. From lines - pages. Letters could be scattered and used to type new text. And in the matrix cast a large number of letters. Johannes Gutenberg is credited with creating the entire typographic process as a whole. For the 15th century, his invention was more than innovative, and the letter became the first standard detail in the history of world technology. The very first printed book is considered to be the so-called Sibylline Book, the publication of which the researchers attribute to approximately the end of 1445. Hence the invention of printing can be dated no later than 1445. The first printed products of Gutenberg - calendars, brochures, "Donates" - a Latin grammar of the middle of the 4th century by Elius Donatus. The work was carried out with the strictest secrecy: the invention undermined the foundations of the activity of scribes, who were able to do anything to keep their craft.

First books
The first books to emerge from the Gutenberg press were Latin grammar books. Later, Guttenberg planned to prepare a labor-intensive edition of the Bible and borrowed for this purpose from the big businessman Johann Fust, a huge amount for those times. When the printing of the Bible was actually completed, disagreements arose between Gutenberg and Fust. Fust accused his partner of embezzlement and demanded the return of the debt with interest - in total over two thousand guilders. With this money in Mainz it was possible to build up a whole street with stone houses. Gutenberg had to give away the workshop, along with the invention and half of the printed copies of the Bible. Fust took over the printing press and successfully continued the work begun by the inventor. Gutenberg was left with another workshop, smaller and less technically capable. Since then, Johannes Gutenberg has taken on only small commissions that are neither technically nor aesthetically comparable to the first edition of the Bible. After the loss of the workshop, Gutenberg's attitude towards his invention changed. If earlier he hid the technology from outsiders in every possible way, not wanting to share the benefit with anyone, then after the loss of the workshop, Gutenberg began to participate in various publishing projects. For example, he helped in the publication of the Bible in Bamberg.
History of printing
Typography is a set of production processes necessary for the production of a printed book, magazine, newspaper or leaflet. The term "typography" is used to describe the book business of past centuries. In our time, this term has been replaced by others - printing, printing production, printing industry. The essence of the printing process is the formation of an ink layer on a printed form, similar to any text or drawing, and its transfer to paper. The starting materials for this process are paint and sheets of paper.
The principle of pressure in typography was borrowed from embossing impressions on melted sealing wax, minting coins - metal money and embossing on leather book bindings. At first, books were printed from whole wooden boards, on which embossed text was carved. The first such woodcut book appeared in Korea in the 9th century. Book printing experiments in China were undertaken by Bi Sheng in 1041-1048. But the wooden boards for all the pages of any new book had to be made from scratch.
In 1438, Johannes Gutenberg made the first impressions from typesetting. Gutenberg followed the path of the creators of alphabets: after all, a set of letter-letters allows you to fix on paper all the sounds of speech in a given language, and not just once, but many times. Before Gutenberg, all books were handwritten. These were either Bibles or commentaries on them. They were rewritten by the monks, who spent several years making only one text. The books belonged mainly to the clergy. Gutenberg spent about two years preparing the first printed set of the Bible. But after that, he was able to immediately print its entire edition. Its 1300-page original is called the "42-line" Bible because its pages are 42 lines long. Gutenberg cast 290 different letters. Gutenberg significantly accelerated and reduced the cost of book production. Profession scribes of handwritten books from that time gradually disappeared. The advent of affordable printed books made literacy urgent need many people. This caused a whole revolution in education. Before Gutenberg, there were only about 30,000 manuscript Bibles in Europe, and by early XVI century, more than 9,000,000 printed books appeared not only on religious, but also on the most diverse topics of science, literature, art, and politics. As a result, the entire society, and not just the ministers of the church, gained access to books and other printed information. The printed book was the first medium in history mass media, which allowed to transfer
Each impression was made by Gutenberg using a screw press. Such a manual machine was quite primitive and slow working. Small format sheets were printed on it on one side with a circulation of no more than 300 prints per day. With minor improvements, it lasted until early XIX century.
In the publications of I. Gutenberg, the illustrations in each copy are made by hand. The typographic reproduction of the ornament in the book printed from the set was made by the German printer P. Schaeffer in 1457 on the pages of the Mainz Psalter. In 1461, the printer A. Pfister published the first books with woodcut illustrations in Bamberg. The text and illustrations were printed separately from each other: the text - from typesetting, and illustrations - from engraved boards. In this case, the illustrations were placed on separate sheets. In the next edition of 1461, the illustrations were already introduced into the text. Thus, a new production operation appeared in the process of making a printing plate, later called layout. Notation printing, that is, the reproduction of musical texts using musical notes, began to be reproduced using woodcuts in 1476. AT mid-sixteenth In the 2nd century, musical texts began to be printed in a typographical way from typesetting forms. Making an engraving on metal with a cutter requires a lot of physical effort from the engraver.

Etching, invented by the gunsmith Daniel Hopfer at the beginning of the 15th century, made it possible to significantly facilitate the work of the engraver. When creating an etching, a copper plate is coated with a special varnish that protects its surface from the action of acid. The engraver scratches the drawing with a sharp needle over the layer of varnish. In places where the needle has scratched a layer of varnish, the surface of the metal plate is exposed. When the surface is treated with acid, the exposed areas of the plate will be etched. They form in-depth printing elements that can be filled with ink and printed on paper.
Printing quickly spread throughout Europe. It appeared in Moscow in the middle of the 16th century. The first so-called anonymous printing house in Moscow appeared in 1553, and in 1563 the first state printing house was opened in it, in which Ivan Fedorov and Pyotr Mstislavets worked. In March 1564 they printed the first Russian printed book- "Apostle". Subsequently, Fedorov and Mstislavets left first for the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and then Fedorov worked in Ukraine, in Lvov and Ostrog, and Mstislavets - in Vilna. In Moscow, their students continued printing. In 1798, Alois Senefeld invented lithography, a method of flat printing in which the surface of a stone serves as a printing plate. The image is applied to the lithographic stone with oily lithographic ink or a lithographic pencil. Lithography, which can be widely reproduced, became widespread in graphics in the 19th century. In the 20th century, lithography was replaced by offset printing, but it retained its importance for performing artistic engravings - prints.

Board printing spread to Europe in late XIV in. In Germany, Italy, Flanders, paper money was printed in this way, playing cards and religious images. At first there was no text on them, it fit in by hand, then pictures with printed text appeared. Woodcut (that is, from the board) printed books appeared around 1450. The technique of printing from the boards resembled Chinese technology in all respects. One side of the sheet remained clean.

Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of European typography, was also at first engaged in printing from boards. But this way of producing books was not adapted to European alphabets. And Guttenberg had an idea: to type text from individual letters. Implementing it, however, proved to be a difficult task and took ten years of hard work. the main problem was that it was difficult to make letters in large quantities without cutting each individually. In other words, it was necessary to come up with a way to mass-produce letters. The method eventually found by Gutenberg involved abandoning wooden letters and casting them from metal.

He did it in the following way. First, he prepared convex images of letters, cutting them out on iron bars. Then he attached this image to a copper bar and hit the letter with a hammer. As a result, a concave letter image was imprinted on copper. Such an image in printing is called a matrix. Guttenberg poured molten lead into it, and when the metal solidified, he took out a block with a convex image of a letter from the matrix. It was mirrored. Lead bars with a letter imprinted on them are called letters. One letter can be used to make thousands of identical letters - just as a letter carved on iron made it possible to make many identical matrices.

The mass production of the metal type from which the set was composed - this is the meaning of Gutenberg's invention of printing. Next, we had to come up with a way to put the letters in a row so that we get an even line, and at the same time make up a page from the lines. For this, Johann invented a simple device- He used metal plate with three sides, two of them were fixed, and the third could move. Such a device was called a workbench. The compositor, in accordance with the text of the typed book, laid in right order one letter after another; the sides did not allow them to crumble. When the page was typed, the board was fixed. The result was a framed page; it was called the printing form. The form was covered with special paint and a sheet of paper was pressed against it. The result is an impression of the set - printed text.

First printing press

In addition to the method of making letters and typing, Johannes Gutenberg created a printing press. He adapted for printing a manual press, used for squeezing grape juice. The printing press consisted of a bottom board, on which a set covered with paint was fixed in a frame, and an upper board, which was lowered with a screw. The top board tightly pressed a sheet of paper to the set - and a clear print was obtained. Thus, Gutenberg developed and created the whole printing process- from casting metal letters to the production of a finished book.

All preparatory work- the manufacture of the first sets of fonts and the construction of the machine - required a lot of money. Guttenberg did not have them, and he had to enter into a deal with the wealthy merchant Fust. The condition was this: they share the profit from the invention in half. But Fust had an appetite, more - he wanted to take over the entire printing house. And he put forward an additional condition: the money he gives for the creation of the printing house is considered Gutenberg's debt. If he does not return it on time, then the printing house becomes the property of Fust.

Business at Guttenberg immediately went well. The books were printed and sold well at first. Guttenberg took an assistant and made an excellent master out of him. The inventor spent all his share of the profit on casting new types and building printing presses; Fust put his share in his pocket. And when Gutenberg ran out of money, Fust began to demand a debt from him, filed a lawsuit and won his claim.

Guttenberg, starving, began to reprint books, while getting into debt. Creditors threatened to sue, and everything could have ended sadly, if not for a circumstance so typical of our time: the printed word for the first time showed its power in the political struggle.

In the city of Mainz, where Guttenberg lived, two archbishops, two higher clerics, were at enmity with each other. And I must say that they also possessed a huge civil authority- did what they wanted, each had his own army. Gutenberg took the side of one of them - he began to print sheets in his support, trying to attract the population of the city to his side. And Fust fought for another priest. As a result, the first archbishop won. Gutenberg's contribution to this victory was "highly" appreciated: every year he could receive a free new dress, two hundred measures of grain and two cartloads of wine, as well as permission to receive dinner from the archbishop's table.

Gutenberg's first book

The first full-length book printed by Gutenberg was the so-called 42-line Bible, which consisted of two volumes of 1286 pages. Considered a masterpiece of early printing, this book imitated Gothic medieval handwritten books. The colored initials (capital letters) and the ornament were made by the artists by hand.

By 1500, printing had penetrated 12 European countries. In the 60 years that have passed since the beginning of the application of the new method, more than 30 thousand titles of books have been printed, the average circulation of one book was 300 copies. These books are called incunabula.

Printing books on Old Church Slavonic began at the end of the 15th century. The Belarusian printer Francisk Skorina achieved especially great success here, in 1517-1519. who printed books in Prague, and in 1525 - in Vilna.

In the Muscovite state, book printing appeared in the middle of the 16th century. Its founder was Ivan Fedorov. The first book "The Apostle", printed at the Moscow Printing Yard (it was the first Moscow printing house), dates back to 1564.