(1)

The fifteenth-century invention of printing by means of movable type also owed much to
advances in metallurgy. To cast usable type requires a metal that will take the exact shape of the
mold into which is poured. German metallurgists answered that need by creating an alloy that
expands as it cools and fits the mold precisely. In 1453 Johannes Gutenberg produced the first
European printed book, the Bible, using type cast with the new alloy.
(2)
The art of printing made an immediate impact on European intellectual life and thought.
In the fifteenth century, Germany, played a crucial role in completing the process. Gutenbergs
Bible printed about 1455, was the first European book produced from movable type.
By 1500, there were over a thousand printers in Europe who had published almost forty
thousand titles (between eight million and ten million copies). More than half were religious
books, including Bibles, prayer books, and sermons. Most others were the Latin and Greek
classics, legal handbooks, works on philosophy, and am ever-growing number of popular
romances.
The effects of printing were soon felt in many areas of European life. The printing books
encouraged scholarly research and the desire to gain knowledge. Printing also stimulated the
growth of an ever-expanding lay reading public, which would eventually have an enormous
impact on European society. Indeed, the new religious ideas of the Reformation would never
have spread as rapidly as they did in the sixteenth century without the printing press.
Printing and the communication of knowledge that it made possible allowed
European civilization to achieve greater heights and compete for the first time with the
civilization of China. The Chinese had invented printing much earlier as well as printing with
movable type. However, their highly structured society made less effort to use printing to
increase the knowledge of its citizens.
(3)
The period of the Renaissance witnessed the development of printing, one of the most
important technological innovations of civilization. The art of printing made an immediate
impact on European intellectual life and thought. Printing from hand-carved wooden blocks had
been present in the West since the twelfth century and in China even before that. What was new
in the fifteenth century in Europe was multiple printing with movable metal type. The
development of printing from movable type was a gradual process that culminated sometime
between 1445 and 1450; Johannes Gutenberg of Mainz played an important role in bringing the
process to completion. Gutenbergs Bible, completed in 1455 or 1456, was the first real book
produced from movable type.
(4)

Printed Books Helped Knowledge to spread to Europe

The greatest invention of the Renaissance was the printing press to print books. The
printing press was based on movable type. In the old block printing method blocks of wood with
carved pictures and words were pressed onto a page of a book. But the carving of each block
took a long time. With movable type, the letters were cut out of metal and were used over and
over again to make up new words. The printer arranged the letters into words and put them into

printing press. The first European to use the printing press was probably Johann Gutenberg
(GOOT-UN-BURG), about the year 1450.
Before the invention of the printing press, it often took a whole year or more to copy a
book by hand. After the invention of the printing press, thousands of copies of a book were
printed at one time. As a result, books became much cheaper, and they were read by many more
people. Now things had been known by thousands of people. Many of the events that you will
read about in later chapters were a result of this great invention that spread knowledge.
(5)

Literacy and Technology

Poor Richards Almanac, published by Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia.

The wide availability of reading material in colonial America by the eighteenth century
was a result of the spread of printing technology. The first printing press began operating in the
colonies in 1639, and by 1695 there were more towns in America with printers than there were in
England. At first, many of these presses did not get very much use. Over time, however, the
rising literacy of the society created a demand for books, pamphlets, and almanacs that presses
rushed to fill.
(6)

Revolutions in Thought and Communication

The new interests were immeasurably helped by the invention of printing. In ancient and
medieval times books were rare and expensive because they had to be copied laboriously by
hand. By the end of the Middle Ages the revival of trade had created a new class of literate men
and women, but the high cost recording peoples thoughts inevitably checked the spread of ideas
and knowledge. In the ninth century the Chinese had begun to print whole pages of text from
single carved wooden blocks. Then in the fifteenth century Germany craftsmen developed a way
to print pages from movable type individual, ready-made letters that could be assembled to
form words and later disassembled for reuse again and again.
The system, probably perfected by Johann Gutenberg of Mainz, soon spread throughout
Europe. By 1500, about 1,000 printers were working in the trade, and they had published 30,000
separate book titles in some 6 million copies. Many of these books were religious, but there were
also scientific works, works on navigation and numerous accounts of discoveries in the Far East
and West. Columbuss description of his first voyage to the Indies was quickly printed, widely
circulated and read. The new printed book marked another difference between the years 1000
and 1492. Cheap books encouraged literacy, and helped create a communications revolution that
guaranteed that Europeans would not forget America a second time.
(7)

Introduction of Printing

One of Spains greatest achievements in the Philippines was the introduction of the art of
printing. The first local printing press was established by the Dominican fathers in 1593 at
Binondo, Manila. This press printed books in xylographic method, that is, by impressions from
engraved woodblocks.

In 1602 Father Blancas de San Jose, famous Dominican linguist and missionary,
improved the printing press by using movable types; thereby introducing the more advanced
method of typographic printing. He was assisted in this by a Christian Chinese named Juan De
Vera, who was a skilled printer and engraver. In 1609 Father Blancas de San Jose transferred the
press to Abucay, Bataan, where he had been assigned as parish priest. He trained a young man in
this town to become a printer; the latter was Tomas Pinpin, who rose to fame as the Prince of
Filipino Printers. In subsequent years the press was moved from place to place back to Manila
(1610-1612), in Pila (1612-1614) back to Manila (1614-1618), in Pampanga (1618-1621), and
finally back to Manila in 1621, where it stayed permanently. It exists today as the University of
Santo Tomas Press. It is the oldest existing university press in the world.
The other religious orders also established their own printing press in the Philippines.
About 1606 the Franciscans established their own printing press in the town of Tayabas; later
they moved it to Dilao (Paco, Manila), and from there they moved it still later in Sampaloc
(Manila), where it existed until the end of the 18 th century. In 1618 the Augustinian friars brought
their printing press from Japan to Manila. They sold it in 1621 to the Jesuits who operated it until
their expulsion from the Philippines in1768. Thanks to the friars, commented W.E, Retana.
(8)
Printing. The first Filipino press in the Philippines was established by the Dominicans in
Manila in the year 1593. That was 47 years before the appearance of the first printing press in the
United States. The first printing press in Manila printed books by means of the old xylographic
method, that is, printing by using engraved wood blocks. It is still existing at the University of
Santo Tomas Press and is one of the oldest printing establishments in the world.
Early Filipino Printers. The first Filipino printer was Tomas Pinpin, the Prince of
Filipino Printers. He was also the first Tagalog author, for he wrote the first Tagalog book ever
published. This book, entitled Librong pag-aaralan nang manga Tgalog nang uicang
Castila(Book that the Tagalogs Should Study to Learn Spanish), was printed in Bataan in 1610.
Tomas Pinpin had a worthy son, Simon, who was also a good printer.
Other pioneer Filipino printers were Diego Talaghay, Nicolas de la Cruz Bagay, Laureano
Atlas, Domingo Laoag, and Cipriano Bagay.
First Books Printed in the Philippines. All the early Filipino printers were trained by
the Spanish missionaries in the art of printing.
(9)

Movable Metal Type and Printing

Before the 1400s, books had to be copied by hand, which was a laborious and timeconsuming method. Books were rare, and only wealthy people and scholars had access to them
or could even learn how to read. Johannes Guterbergs invention of movable metal type in the
1440s changed all that: books could be reproduced much faster and much less expensively than
ever before. Consequently, more people were able to obtain books and to learn about new ideas
and practices. This, in turn, caused them to qusetion age-old traditions and to yearn for change.

German printers qickly adopted Gutenbergs invention and set up similar printing presses
in other European countries. In less than 50 years after Gutenberg produced his first book, almost
10 million books had been printed in Europe.
The German religious reformer Martin Luther was one of the first authors to reap the
benefit of this new technology. Since his books could be reproduced inexpensively and in large
quantities, they could be easily obtained throughout Europe shortly after Luther completed them.
Thus, Martin Luther was able to spread his religious ideas and call for reormation quickly
throughout Europe, gaining widespread support fo them before the Catholic Church even
formulate a proper response.
(10)

THE SONG AND JIN EMPIRES ca. 1150

Great inventions. The Chinese invented gunpowder during the Tang Dynasty but used it
at that time only in firecrackers. They fisrt used it for warfare as an explosive around the year
1100.
Printing was an even greater invention of the Chinese. They had learned very early how
to make ink and paper. the fist step toward printing probably came in A.D. 175, during the Han
Dynasty when the Chinese classics were carved in stone. Artisans could copy these writings by
carefully fitting damp paper over the stone incription and parting the flat surface with soot. this
resulted in a white-on-black image of the original.
The next step in printing probably came with seals of metal or wood on which an
incription was carved in reverse. By the 600s such seals had become quite large, and the images
they created resembled todays block prints.
The oldest printed book is the Diamond Sutra a Bhuddist religious text printed in China
in 865 during the Tang Dynasty. It was made in the form of a roll of six sheets of paper pasted
together. Carved blocks were used to print the words on the roll.
Movable type by which separate characters can be arrange freely to form words and
sentences, apparently came into China to Korea about 030. The characters were made of wood,
porcelain or copper. This technique did not become common in China, however. Since the
Chinese language consists of so many characters, would have had to make about 40,000 separate
movable blocks to represent them all. For this realism, the Chinese preferred blocks carved with
an entire page text.