Printing Shop of Fust and Schoeffer

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I am so glad that you decided to visit my shop. I am, if you remember from our meeting at Guild Hall, Peter Schoeffer. The printing press you see at the left is Gutenberg's actual printing press. We obtained it in the settlement of the law suit that my now partner, Fust, brought against Gutenberg. But I get ahead of myself. I should first explain the printing process to you and then if you wish, you may read my jottings of what I know about Gutenberg's life. There are two main processes involved in printing; setting the type and pressing the paper to make copies.

First Process: Setting the Type

This consists of making up separate letters into words and words into lines and then arranging the lines into a page form. Whole pages of text and pictures with captions beneath used to be carved from solid wooden blocks and used to print books. However, large numbers of books could not be printed using this method because the wood deteriorated rapidly and only a few books could be printed from each block. Also, the number of blocks needed to print an entire book made the process prohibitive in cost and labor required. Books produced this way were almost as slow to produce as those copied by hand by the scribes. The key to printing lay in using movable type. This meant that separate pieces of wood for each letter of the alphabet as well as punctuation marks needed to be carved which could then be put together to make the text for a few pages of a book. The type could then be rearranged to form the next few pages and so forth. The problem lay in the precision of the type. Although wood-carving was a highly-skilled craft, the type needed to be so precisely made so that it fitted together closely and in line. This made wood a medium unsuitable for the desired outcome. It was Gutenberg's invention of moveable metal type which formed the key to our current methods of printing.

 

Bookbinders used brass punches to emboss the letters of the title of a book into its leather binding. It is these brass punches which probably Gutenberg turned to as a model for his metal type. On each brass punch was a model of a letter of the alphabet reversed from left to right. Gutenberg found that by using the brass punch on a bar of softer metal, he could make an impression of the letter (called a matrix) which could then be used a a cast for a still softer metal such as lead, thus making many copies of the original die. In order fo the impressions of these type pieces to be even in the printing process, each had to be exactly the same depth. Many pieces of type had to be prepared for each page of a book. Two pages of Gutenberg's Bible needed approximately six thousand pieces of individual type.

 

The finished pieces of type were then stored in cases where the compositor, or typesetter, would then pick out the needed letters and put them into a holder called a "stick" with blank spaces bettween words. These lines of type were then transfered to a tray, or galley where the spacing between the lines was inserted. Once a whole page was assembled in this manner in the galley, it was transfered to a steel or iron frame and wedges were hammered in at the edges to keep the type firmly in place. Once secure, it was refered to as a "forme" and was ready for the press.

 

 

Second Process: Pressing Paper to Make Copies

This consists of pressing paper against the type when it is inked. Presses are used from presses for fruit (i.e. the apple press used for cider-making). These were operated by turning a screw which pressed two blocks of wood together.

 

First, lines of letters formed from individual metal type, are locked firmly together in a frame using wooden wedges to make a whole page of words by printers called compositors. After the forme was made for a page of a book, it was placed on the base of the press or the "bed" of the press as it was called. This is the basis of the phrase "putting a paper to bed" used in your time to mean that the object to be printed is in the press. A leather pad was used to apply ink to the type and a sheet of paper was laid carefully over the type and held in place by a paper holder. All three pieces (the paper, the paper holder, and the type) are then slid into the press. A second block of wood (a flat wooden plate) is then brought down on top by means of a large screw with two handles, each manned by a worker. This presses the paper firmly down onto the inked type to print the page. When the paper is printed, the large piece of wood is lifted, the paper is removed and hung up to dry. It was very easy to smudge the paper in this process, and sometimes many trys were made before a good copy could be made. The high quality of Guenberg's Bible is proof to the meticulous effort of its creator.

 

With this arrangement, about 300 pages a day can be printed. Once the pages are printed, they are taken to the binders who arrange the sheets in the correct order and press them tightly together. Glue and thread is used to stich the pages into the books which are covered in vellum. The finished book can now be sold in a bookshop.

 

I promised you a look at my Guttenberg notes. My notebook is over on the shelf by the printing press. Feel free to thumb through it if you wish.

 

Look at Guttenberg notes

 

 

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Credits:

The picture of the printing press is shown by arrangement with the Gutenberg Museum at Mainz in Germany (http://www.uni-mainz.de/UniInfo/Stadt/Museen/gutenberg.html) This picture is of their faithful reproduction of Gutenberg's printshop as it would have been in the 1450s.

 

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References:

Durant, Will (1953). The Renaissance: A History of Civilization in Italy from 1304-1576 A.D. Simon & Schuster. New York, New York.

 

Lyon, Sue (Ed.) (1989). Shakespeare's England. Marshall Cavendish, New York, N.Y.

 

Pollard, Michael (1992). Johann Gutenberg. Exley Publications Ltd. Watford, Herts WDI 4BN, United Kingdom.

 

Newman, Art (1988). The Illustrated Treasury of Medical Curiosa. McGraw-Hill, Inc. New York, New York.

 

Wood, Tim (1993). The Renaissance. Viking Press, New York, N.Y.

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