Looking at a topic like this, I thank my Grade 12 history teacher for the few points of knowledge I know of this individual and his creations. It's incredibly interesting, and dating back to the 1450s! This is the short story of one of the most famous bibles in history!
Who Was Johannes Gutenberg?
In simple terms, "Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1400-1468) was an German inventor, blacksmith, printer, goldsmith and publisher who developed Europe’s first mechanical moveable-type printing press. The press made books – and the knowledge they contained – affordable and widely available, with works such as the ‘Gutenberg Bible’ playing a key part in speeding up the advancement of the modern knowledge-based economy," as Lucy Davidson states in one of History Hit's articles.
In my previous placement with a past employer, I was actually able to use some of this information to teach children a few different points. It was fascinating they told me. Gutenberg hand-wrote every bible word for word as I told them before moving on to the printing press. Taking hours and months on end. His copies sold for big bucks, and still do today. If you look deep enough, I'm sure you can see their past auctions. But what's even more important to this is the fact that, the printing press, it helped kickstart new ideas. In other words, his impact was huge.
As Davidson states,
It ushered in the modern period of human history and played a pivotal role in the evolution of the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment and the scientific revolution.
Why Do We Remember Him and His Creations?
As I had mentioned previously, Gutenberg’s most famous work was the Gutenberg Bible. While only around 22 copies survive to this date, there were several copies. "Consisting of three volumes of text written in Latin," as Davidson states, "it featured 42 lines of type per page and was decorated with colourful illustrations. The size of the font made the text extremely easy to read, which proved popular among church clergy."
Now while the bible was legendary, it did more than just this. It's said it sparked literacy rates and book-making in Europe. And due to the language of this bible being Latin, it became a more common language in Europe at the time all because of this mans creation. I personally find that incredibly interesting. How a bible could dominate so much of Europe in a short period of time.
The above photo shows one of the 3 copies that Morgan Library holds. Standing as the only institution to hold 3 copies of this magnificent artifact. Looking at the photo itself shows how well preserved it is, which stands to be even more fascinating considering it's age!
I believe that while recognizing his creations, it's important to clear some mud when it comes to who invented the ideas of the printing press. As The British Library states, "Printing with moveable type had been developed earlier in East Asia. The earliest type of this kind is documented in Chinese sources in the 11th century. Metal moveable type was developed in Korea in the 13th century with a number of officially commissioned fonts being created from the early 15th century." Therefore, with credit to the Chinese, Gutenberg followed through with these ideas and made his own creations consisting of those previous Chinese ideas.
If you would like to read up more on this Bible and it's texts please follow the following link:
Thank you for reading this blog. That concludes this posting.
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