Evolution of Printing: From Block Printing to the Printing Press

The Acta Diurna (Daily Events) is the oldest evidence of a news publication. It was created during the regime of Julius Caesar to inform his people of the official news. Various copies of the daily gazette were distributed daily to the significant places of Rome and other provinces of the Roman Empire. Then the Chinese came, and they first invented the art of printing during the Tang Dynasty in 600 AD. They made wooden blocks to print letters. And the oldest printed book was discovered originating from the time period of the Tang Dynasty, The Diamond Sutra. It was printed around 868 AD from the method of block printing.

Johannes Gutenberg an exile from Germany started experimenting with printing in France in 1440 and by the year 1450 he had invented a perfect printing machine and the Gutenberg Press was established. Guttenberg borrowed fund from Johannes Fust to further his project and Fust later joined him as a partner. Together they set out to print calendars and pamphlet. In 1942, Guttenberg mechanically printed the first ever book, the Bible which is also called the Guttenberg Bible.

Printed manuscripts except for the ones in Hebrew script were banned in the Ottoman Empire. By the middle of the sixteenth century it was termed as a sin and Selim I went as far to issue a decree that whoever will indulge in the practice of printing would be punished with death. Printing did not become common in the Islamic world till the 1800s.

The Printing Press had significant catalytic effects on the European Renaissance. The Renaissance was an effort to revive the long lost works of literature and the Roman educational system. The printing press did not start the Renaissance but it did put the rediscovery and sharing of knowledge into a faster and higher gear. What started to provide knowledge to the elite class only could now provide a library in a small town.

Before the printing press was founded, books would take ages to be printed by the method of block printing but the printing press made the process faster and by the 1500s the printing press had already printed 20 million copies.

Bookmakers would hire skilled scribes and artisans for the painstakingly hard process of illuminating manuscripts but the printing press had taken over this skillset as well. On the bright side, the press introduced new industries which included the printers, brick and mortar booksellers, and street peddlers. The founder father of America, Benjamin Franklin was a printer’s apprentice.
The Gutenberg Press is said to be the most valuable invention of this millennia. It changed the world drastically and a new era of the human race began and did not stop. The Printing Press brought forward such a revolution that it changed the face of the world forever.