The Machine that made us - Stephen Fry BBC Documentary

After watching this documentary on the printing press it was made clear to me just how important this invention was in relation to the modern world as we know it, Years of hard work, time and dedication went into designing and creating this marvelous invention. There were many factors that influenced the creation of the Gutenberg press some were good others were bad. The press has to be the most significant invention ever created since the invention of the wheel. Stephen Fry explores how the press was created and the ups and downs which occurred along the way. I have taken some notes based on what I feel is important to this era of change.

"I've always been rather fond of books, in fact I think they are just about the most important thing we have ever created, the building blocks of our civilization." Stephen Fry

• Gutenberg launched the first media revolution opening the door to the modern age

 

• John Bull printing Outfit - example of how printing works
• The printing press was the most revolutionary advancement in technology since the wheel.
• After the press was invented 20 million books had been printed in just 50 years
• The invention of the printing press started off the Renaissance
• The documentary is interposed with those of present-day craftsmen following the medieval methods of press-building (Alan May), papermaking (Roberto Mazzucchelli at the Basel Paper Mill), and typefounding (Stan Nelson)
• The Gutenberg press was only a 1 pull machine unlike later 2 pull presses. Before the invention of the printing press, scribes spent years hand writing individual books out as neatly and perfect as possible, but there would always be errors this way. The press meant that once a page had been proof read it could be mass produced hundreds of times without error or change which meant someone in another part of the world could be reading the exact same book as you. This meant that masses of people would have access to all this new knowledge and information which was once restricted to those rich and powerful enough to afford books, mainly the church who ran everything over in Mainz.
• Gutenberg was not only an engineer, but a merchant and an interlectual, he decided that his business plan needed to take place else where. Mainz was not the right city for the job so he moved to Strasberg where he seeked investors. He kept it as secret as he could so nobody could rip off his idea.
• Gutenberg took his inspiration from wine presses.
• When moving to Strasberg the black death took off killing off one of his investors which was a bit of a set back but he managed to carry on his invention. Eventually one of Gutenberg's investors demanded the money he had given him, when Gutenberg couldn't pay Fust, Fust took all of Gutenberg's printing equipment.
• The Gutenberg bible needed 270 different characters to complete all of different sizes to make sure the book could be printed with perfect justification, always allowing it to be set correctly with the use of different letters.
• He originally wanted to print all the bibles on Velum but this would prove far to expensive it would take 140 calves to produce 1 bible. 12 were made evntually on Velum.
• Paper was mass produced in order to keep the printing press in business, Gutenberg made 180 copies of his bible each with 1200 pages, that was just the black ink. Afterwards the books were decorated with colour.