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Gutenberg Printing Method Questioned
Discovery Channel ^ | 11-12-2004 | Rossella Lorenzi

Posted on 11/14/2004 4:43:31 PM PST by blam

Gutenberg Printing Method Questioned

By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News

Nov. 12, 2004 — Johannes Gutenberg may be wrongly credited with producing the first Western book printed in movable type, according to an Italian researcher.

Presenting his findings in a mock trial of Gutenberg at the recent Festival of Science in Genoa, Bruno Fabbiani, an expert in printing who teaches at Turin Polytechnic, said the 15th-century German printer used stamps rather than the movable type he is said to have invented between 1452 and 1455.

Overlapping Letters in the Gutenberg Bible

Gutenberg and His Bible

Gutenberg (c.1397-1468), whose real name was Johannes Gensfleisch, is credited with inventing a mold for small metal blocks with raised letters on them. The blocks could be put together to form words.

After a page was printed, the type could be reused for printing other pages.

With this method, Gutenberg is said to have printed an edition of about 180 copies — of which only 48 exist today — of the 42-line bible, so called for the number of lines in each printed column.

The invention produced a literary boom in Europe.

According to Fabbiani, Gutenberg printed his bible not with movable type, but with a brilliant metallographic invention.

After scrutinizing an original page of the 42-line bible, Fabbiani noticed that some letters were slightly superimposed.

"Movable type are metal blocks, sort of parallelepipeds put together, one attached to another, to form words. With this method, it is practically impossible for type to be superimposed," Fabbiani said.

Instead, Gutenberg used keys similar to those on a typewriter, according to Fabbiani.

"Just think of something like the keys of a typing machine, but bigger of course. Using them, a character after another, a line after another, Gutenberg impressed a metal plate until he created a page and printed it. With this method, it is quite likely that some imperfection such as the slightly superimposing type, occurred," Fabbiani said.

The researcher devised and showed 30 experiments at the trial that would indicate Gutenberg did not use moveable type.

The claim caused uproar among academics. Some researchers simply dismissed Fabbiani's experiments as a stunt.

Eva Hanebutt-Benz, director of the Gutenberg Museum in the German town of Mainz, where Gutenberg was born, told reporters that there are "many open questions" on how Gutenberg produced the Bible as no documents exist from the printer's workshop. But she was strongly skeptical about Fabbiani's claim.

Other experts were intrigued.

"This is very important and credible research. We should not be afraid to destroy the myths, " Francesco Pirella of Genoa's Museum of Print told Discovery News.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: epigraphyandlanguage; ggg; godsgravesglyphs; gutenberg; gutenbergbible; johannesgensfleisch; johannesgutenberg; method; middleages; printing; questioned; renaissance
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To: primeval patriot

We still have an Intertype machine we use for letterpress printing. Very similar to a Linotype.


21 posted on 11/14/2004 5:20:50 PM PST by HalfAMind (United we stand, democratic we fall.)
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To: blam

Is that damned kerning going to expose Gutenberg, too?


22 posted on 11/14/2004 5:21:00 PM PST by Blood of Tyrants (God is not a Republican. But Satan is definitely a Democrat.)
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To: blam

BTTT


23 posted on 11/14/2004 5:22:52 PM PST by Fiddlstix (This Tagline for sale. (Presented by TagLines R US))
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To: my_pointy_head_is_sharp
Interesting.

"CAP 1 1 In the bigynnyng God made of nouyt heuene and erthe. 2 Forsothe the erthe was idel and voide, and derknessis weren on the face of depthe; and the Spiryt of the Lord was borun on the watris.
3 And God seide, Liyt be maad, and liyt was maad. 4 And God seiy the liyt, that it was good, and he departide the liyt fro derknessis; and he clepide the liyt, 5 dai, and the derknessis, nyyt. And the euentid and morwetid was maad, o daie.
6 And God seide, The firmament be maad in the myddis of watris, and departe watris fro watris.
7 And God made the firmament, and departide the watris that weren vndur the firmament fro these watris that weren on the firmament; and it was don so.
8 And God clepide the firmament, heuene. And the euentid and morwetid was maad, the secounde dai.
9 Forsothe God seide, The watris, that ben vndur heuene, be gaderid in to o place, and a drie place appere; and it was doon so."

24 posted on 11/14/2004 5:24:34 PM PST by blam
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To: blam

I thought the Chinese invented printing a couple of Centuries earlier, Chinese guy named Al Chin Gore Guy (Means stick of wood, I think)

"Marco Polo Reports, You Decide"


25 posted on 11/14/2004 5:32:20 PM PST by TexasTransplant (It is UNAmerican to put the UN before America)
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To: 50sDad
Seriously, is this clown saying "typesetting machine", of the type that Mark Twain went broke investing in two centuries ago, and couldn't get invented with 1800's tech, much less Medeval tech?

No, I think he's saying that instead of making blocks of raised letters, then clamping them together in a row to make a line of type, he had blocks of *recessed* letters, and individually stamped them into a plate (presumably with a hammer) in order to leave raised letters on the plate. The plate was then used as the printing plate.

The end result would be a manual version of what typesetting machines do automatically, but it would still be manual.

26 posted on 11/14/2004 5:35:30 PM PST by Ichneumon ("...she might as well have been a space alien." - Bill Clinton, on Hillary, "My Life", p. 182)
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To: TexasTransplant
Unfotunately the Chinese are given credit for things invented during the period of Mongol supremacy simply because Western researchers have failed to distinguish among the Chinese, the Mongols and the Koreans.

Still, the multi-stage rocket was invented by Schmidlapp, not some unknown Mongolian Chinese Korean.

27 posted on 11/14/2004 5:38:03 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: Buckhead
Can you clear this up for us?

You were the first one I thought about with this story. LOL

28 posted on 11/14/2004 5:42:58 PM PST by perfect stranger
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To: HalfAMind

Did you try both examples? The left one is awfully close, though I agree, it alone is not very convincing evidence. (Former editor, but typography was only a hobby, and I wasn't a Linotype operator.)


29 posted on 11/14/2004 6:11:30 PM PST by Gondring (They can have my Bill of Rights when they pry it from my cold, dead hands!)
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To: Paleo Conservative

I hadn't noticed that. But on further digging, I see that they are selling CD roms of old English translations of the Bible, as well as Russian versions.


30 posted on 11/14/2004 6:18:32 PM PST by my_pointy_head_is_sharp
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To: blam

Next they'll be telling me Al Gore didn't invent the internet either.....

Sheesh.....

;-)


31 posted on 11/14/2004 6:37:55 PM PST by festus (Imperialism Shall Rise Again)
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To: muawiyah
"Unfotunately the Chinese are given credit for things invented during the period of Mongol supremacy simply because Western researchers have failed to distinguish among the Chinese, the Mongols and the Koreans."

That is still occuring today.

32 posted on 11/14/2004 9:10:16 PM PST by blam
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To: blam; FairOpinion; Ernest_at_the_Beach; SunkenCiv; 24Karet; 3AngelaD; 4ConservativeJustices; ...
Finally, the GGG ping. Sorry for today's volume, but I'm finally able to catch up.
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest
-- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

33 posted on 11/16/2004 11:12:05 AM PST by SunkenCiv ("All I have seen teaches me trust the Creator for all I have not seen." -- Emerson)
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To: blam

Hey at least police academy was a good movie, and you can't take that away from this guy.


34 posted on 11/16/2004 11:18:19 AM PST by escapefromboston (manny ortez: MVP)
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To: blam

I read that Koreans were the first to invent pirnting.


35 posted on 11/16/2004 2:17:42 PM PST by Ptarmigan (Proud rabbit hater and killer)
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To: my_pointy_head_is_sharp

middle english....neat!


36 posted on 11/16/2004 7:14:48 PM PST by Chani
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To: blam

That's a copy!


37 posted on 11/16/2004 9:19:11 PM PST by Henchman (BORK SPECTER. Email your friends and relatives. PLEASE do it now!)
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To: StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; 31R1O; ...
Note: this topic is from 11/14/2004. Re-ping. I watched this documentary this morning, found it on YT as well. Thanks blam.
Stephen Fry takes a look inside the story of Johann Gutenberg, inventor of the world's first printing press in the 15th century, and an exploration of how and why the machine was invented.The Machine That Made Us (Gutenberg Printing Press Documentary) | Timeline

The Machine That Made Us (Gutenberg Printing Press Documentary) | Timeline
BBC - Stephen Fry - The Machine That Made Us

BBC - Stephen Fry - The Machine That Made Us

38 posted on 08/09/2020 8:29:27 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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http://www.google.com/search?q=albrecht+durer+woodcut+of+printing+press&tbm=isch


39 posted on 08/09/2020 8:32:26 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: blam

His invention was probably another gift of technolgy from the extraterrestials among us.

On a more serious note, the timeline juxtaposition of the printing press and the fall of Constantinople is fascinating, because the coincidence enabled the forward movement of Western civilization and the closing of the East to modernity in technology and all the arts because of the Islamic culture that was imposed.


40 posted on 08/11/2020 9:47:44 AM PDT by wildbill (The older I get, the less 'life in prison" means to me)
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