Herbert Marshall McLuhan Research

Herbert Marshall McLuhan, CC (July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian philosopher of communication theory. His work is viewed as one of the cornerstones of the study of media theory, as well as having practical applications in the advertising and television industries.

The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962)

McLuhan's The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (written in 1961, first published in Canada by University of Toronto Press in 1962) is a pioneering study in the fields of oral culture, print culture, cultural studies, and media ecology.

Throughout the book, McLuhan takes pains to reveal how communication technology (alphabetic writing, the printing press, and the electronic media) affects cognitive organization, which in turn has profound ramifications for social organization:

"...[I]f a new technology extends one or more of our senses outside us into the social world, then new ratios among all of our senses will occur in that particular culture. It is comparable to what happens when a new note is added to a melody. And when the sense ratios alter in any culture then what had appeared lucid before may suddenly become opaque, and what had been vague or opaque will become translucent"

Movable type

His episodic history takes the reader from pre-alphabetic tribal humankind to the electronic age. According to McLuhan, the invention of movable type greatly accelerated, intensified, and ultimately enabled cultural and cognitive changes that had already been taking place since the invention and implementation of the alphabet, by which McLuhan means phonemic orthography. (McLuhan is careful to distinguish the phonetic alphabet from logographic/logogramic writing systems, like hieroglyphics or ideograms.)

Print culture, ushered in by the Gutenberg press in the middle of the fifteenth century, brought about the cultural predominance of the visual over the aural/oral. Quoting with approval an observation on the nature of the printed word from Prints and Visual Communication by William Ivins, McLuhan remarks:

In this passage [Ivins] not only notes the ingraining of lineal, sequential habits, but, even more important, points out the visual homogenizing of experience of print culture, and the relegation of auditory and other sensuous complexity to the background. [...] The technology and social effects of typography incline us to abstain from noting interplay and, as it were, "formal" causality, both in our inner and external lives. Print exists by virtue of the static separation of functions and fosters a mentality that gradually resists any but a separative and compartmentalizing or specialist outlook.^{124 -126}

The main concept of McLuhan's argument (later elaborated upon in The Medium is the Massage) is that new technologies (like alphabets, printing presses, and even speech itself) exert a gravitational effect on cognition, which in turn affects social organization: print technology changes our perceptual habits ("visual homogenizing of experience"), which in turn affects social interactions ("fosters a mentality that gradually resists all but a... specialist outlook"). According to McLuhan, the advent of print technology contributed to and made possible most of the salient trends in the Modern period in the Western world: individualism, democracy, Protestantism, capitalism and nationalism. For McLuhan, these trends all reverberate with print technology's principle of "segmentation of actions and functions and principle of visual quantification."¹⁵⁴

How the Printing Press, the Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution Contributed to the Development of Modern Western Civilization

Written by Kyle Wurtz on 12/14/2011

Prepared for Dr. Tara Wood

 

In the mid-1300s, one of the most devastating plagues in human history tore through Europe. Known as the Black Death, this pandemic severely disrupted Western Civilization. As the West recovered, and in the centuries that followed, there were several key developments that laid the foundation for the Western Civilization we know today. Between the time of the Black Death and the middle 17th century, three of the most significant developments for Western Civilization were the invention of the printing press, which allowed for faster spread of knowledge and ideas, the Reformation, which represented the first large-scale movement against the traditional Church, and the scientific revolution, which simultaneously provided for great technological advancements and completely shifted the Western worldview.

In the mid-1400s, German Johannes Gutenberg invented a machine that incorporated the movable type process to greatly reduce the overhead of publishing a book. Prior to Gutenberg’s printing press, books were copied by hand, a method that was not only extremely time-consuming but also less reliable as there was more room for human error. The result was that books, magazines, and other documents were rare and typically only available to the upper classes. Without access to publications, the people of the West were, by and large, uneducated. Gutenberg changed all of this with his printing press, making it an invention not only admirable for its technological advancements but also for its vast impact on society.

It is nearly impossible to count the ways in which the invention of the printing press and the resulting printing revolution impacted the development of the West. However, one extremely significant immediate impact was on the Reformation, which was in its childhood when the printing revolution began. The roots of the printing revolution took hold very quickly because of the low start-up cost of opening a print shop, and it is estimated that, “by 1500, a thousand presses were operating in 265 towns” (Noble, 340). 

 

This sparked the Reformation by allowing “the ideas and scholarship of the Renaissance could move cheaply and quickly,” much more so than they could when copying by hand was the only option.” Because of this, “we cannot overemphasize the importance of the printing press to the development of the northern Renaissance and the Reformation itself” (The Northern Renaissance and Reformation Begins Overview). The Reformation was most certainly “a war of the presses,” with a variety of pamphlets being distributed by Reformers informing formerly uneducated citizens of the Church’s “biblical teachings, doctrine, AND the abuses” that detailed the Church’s shortcomings (The Northern Renaissance and Reformation Begins Overview). The Church consequently issued pamphlets and printed documents of its own, leading to a bitter struggle of the press. It’s interesting to note that the impact of the printing press didn’t stop with the actual documents. The printshop actually became a “center of culture and communication.” Some notable early printers were humanists, for example, and their printshops became “natural sources of humanist ideas.” Also, in the sixteenth century, printshops became natural sources of “Protestant religious programs” (Noble, 341).

We also see the enormous impact of the printing press during the scientific revolution, when printed documents allowed for standardized philosophical and scientific texts to be distributed throughout the West with very low cost. This allowed scholars throughout the European world to “feel fairly confident that they and their colleagues were analyzing identical texts,” including their own works (Noble, 341). The Reformation and the scientific revolution are only two such examples of the impact of the printing press, but the fact that Gutenberg’s invention was crucial to their developments alone makes it worthy of being considered one of the greatest events of Western Civilization between the 14th and 17th centuries.

The next influential development during this time period was the Protestant Reformation. Led by Martin Luther in the early 1500s, the Reformation challenged religious precedent and drastically altered the West’s religious landscape. For years, the Catholic Church had been abusing its power in a variety of ways. For example, the Church allowed Christians to buy indulgences (these were essentially bribes) to effectively pardon their sins. The Church also withheld the perception that it was essential for the average Christian to reach God (in other words, a Christian had to go through the Church in order to be approved in God’s eyes). Luther sparked a revolution of sorts in the Christian world to challenge not only these practices but their underlying theology as well.

Some of Luther’s ideas included Sola Fide (Justification by Faith Alone), Sola Scriptura (knowledge of God came from the Bible), and Priesthood of All Believers (all members of the Faith were equal in God’s eyes) (The Lutheran Reformation and its Spread Overview). These were extremely dangerous ideas to the Church, one of society’s most influential institutions. For example, Sola Scriptura indicated that the Bible, not the Church and its interpretation of the Bible, was the true authority. This effectively reduced the influential power of the Church. Luther’s Priesthood of All Believers also corroded the Church’s power by asserting that “all were on equal footing: kings on the same level as the pope on spiritual powers”  (The Lutheran Reformation and its Spread Overview). This had an interesting effect not only on Western religion but also on Western politics, as it aided the development of the nation-state. The underlying thought was: If all Christians are equal in God’s eyes, do politicians (nobles and kings) really need the priests and the Pope to legitimize their power? Because of this, Luther and his followers actually received support from princes and kings. This makes sense, because those with political power “liked having the church support them as sacred monarchs, blessed by God, but they didn’t always like having the Church having its own law courts and authority within their territories” (The Lutheran Reformation and its Spread Overview).

The Catholics didn’t obediently bow to Luther’s theories and the support of governments, however. They fought back to preserve their power, and, as a result, “religious war would dominate Europe for nearly 100 years” (Zwingli/Calvin and the Reformation in England Overview). This ongoing battle between Catholics and Protestants was eventually settled (for the most part) when Henry IV’s Edict of Nantes decreed that Protestants, or those “of the said religion called Reformed,” be permitted to “exercise the said religion” within their regions” (Edict of Nantes). In other words, Catholics had to live with the competition Protestants provided.

It is interesting to note that Luther wasn’t the first person to realize these Church practices and theories were corrupt. In fact, people had actually been grumbling about the Church for centuries. The Reformation managed to take hold during Luther’s era partially because of the printing press (which allowed for the quick spread of information regarding the Church’s abuses) and the support from “new centralized national governments” because they saw “Church reform as beneficial to increasing their own authority” (The Northern Renaissance and the Reformation Begins Overview). These were only means to achieving religious revolution, however. The real reason that the Reformation was successful was that people connected with Luther’s ideas on a very deep level. Luther’s teachings actually empowered the common man. They emphasized “individual belief and religious participation,” not obedience to institutions of authority (Noble, 381). This was actually so powerful that many of Luther’s followers took the idea further than even Luther intended. Luther actually criticized the peasants who revolted in the name of his ideas, writing that they “act[ed] like mad dogs,” misinterpreted his words, and “practice[d] mere devil’s work” (Against the Murdering and Robbing Bands of Peasants). Despite Luther’s eventual lack of support for the movement his words sparked, and even though the “new” church institutions “that replaced the old church developed their own traditions of control,” the reform movement nevertheless acted as one of the first significant steps towards challenging the Church’s power and even its theological and philosophical ideas (Noble, 382).

A third historically significant development that has had a huge impact on shaping Western Civilization today is the scientific revolution that occurred in the 17th century. The Reformation, assisted in part by the printing press, had taken the first punch at the traditional notion of the Church, and the scientific revolution further attacked this precedent.

The scientific revolution was heavily rooted in past events. Scientists and philosophers of the era had been exposed “to the intellectual innovations of the Renaissance thought, the intellectual challenges and material opportunities represented by the discovery of the New World, and the challenge to authority embodied in the Reformation” (Noble, 473).    It was the culmination of centuries of a gradual shift in the European worldview from religion-only to more broad thought processes that included logic, reasoning and careful observation of nature. An excellent example of this rediscovered respect for trusting one’s own senses and powers of observation can be seen in Galileo’s observations of the movement of Jupiter’s moons. He includes some diagrams and a detailed analysis of how “three starlets, small indeed, but very bright” moved around Jupiter over the course of a week (Galileo Galilei). The movement towards observation led to the creation of processes for reasoning, including Descartes’s deductive process that’s rooted in “never [accepting] anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such” (Rene Descartes) and Isaac Newton’s groundwork for the scientific method (Isaac Newton).

As scientists and thinkers learned to trust their powers of observation, they “gained confidence in human reason and the intelligibility of the world” and “turned to new speculation about human affairs.” This included beginning to “challenge traditional justifications for the hierarchical nature of society and the sanctity of authority” (Noble, 473). In other words, the scientific revolution wasn’t all about science. Rather, it was about questioning precedent, especially if that precedent had not been rigorously proven to be true. This had an enormous impact on nearly every aspect of society, but it had arguably the most pronounced effect on superstition and religion. Francis Bacon comments on this and argues that superstition tends to get in the way of valid (scientific) discovery of truth. For example, he references how the superstitions Christian Church ostracized those who “maintained the earth was round” (Francis Bacon). Galileo also implicitly criticizes the Church’s ideas by writing that his observations of Jupiter’s stars form “a fine and elegant argument for quieting” the argument of the Church that the Earth is the center of the universe. It is important to note that, while the scientific revolution didn’t necessarily explicitly attack religion and God, or even the presence of the historically large institution that was the Catholic Church, it represented a shift in how Westerners viewed the world from through the lens of religion to the lens of reason.

Throughout history, Western Civilization has progressed most when there is an increase in the number of ideas and/or the spread of those ideas. These three developments between the 14th and 17th centuries exemplify this phenomenon, from the Reformation and scientific revolution’s explosion of ideas and new ways of viewing the world to the invention of the printing press that allowed these ideas to reach people all throughout the Western World. It seems impossible that the West that we know today, which possesses a strong culture of individualism and emphasizes intellectualism, would have developed without these advancements.

https://vestnstorage.blob.core.windows.net/pdfs/1917ea3e-1772-4101-94da-e10cf247aebb.pdf 

 

My Thoughts

 

I found this essay really helpful to pin down some of the major events that were influenced by the invention of the printing press. The press made it possible for the mass spread of information to be possible, which resulted in The Protestant reformation and also helped to further the scientific revolution, many of the theories we live by today would not of been accepted without this ability to validate findings against other published works. The printing press allowed people to get their views and ideas out into the world. The press gave Luther the chance to expose the church for all their sneaky crimes that they had been commiting against the people. Essentially brain washing them into following and paying the church. Luther knew they were doing wrong and so used the printing press to spread his words far and wide. This in turn created a divide between the religions which in turn caused many wars and disputes over the years.

 

In terms of the scientific revolution, the printing press was a real fueling factor in its take off. When the press came about scientists were able to publish theories on all different kinds of matters, from the universe, to the anatomy etc. Over this period of time the world was much more clued up on how the world works. This mass awakening of the people lead people to think in a much more logical way, learning to trust their instincts rather than be lead. The press gave the chance for the common man to gain as much intellectual knowledge as the rich folk who could afford to read before. It is no doubt that the printing press was the back bone for how civiliazation functions today.

Music Printing in the Renaissance 

http://www.pnelsoncomposer.com/writings/MusicPrintingRenaissance.html 

Copyright (c) 2003 by Paul Nelson, all rights reserved.

Introduction

Music printing was born in the renaissance during a 100 year period of intense innovative activity from the late 15 century to the late 16 century. During this time, many technologies were tried. Some were newly invented, such as the process of using moveable type to set notes and staff lines. Others, such as woodcuts, were fairly old but used in new ways.

In nearly every case, new technologies were not immediately adopted, but rather began in fits and starts. Often, a new technology would require a master printer to demonstrate how it could be used effectively and profitably before it became standard throughout the industry.

The remainder of this paper will focus on this birthing period of music printing and will cover the technologies and inventors involved from the start.

The Gutenberg Printing Process

Any discussion of early printing in the western world must begin with Gutenberg, who, around 1450, integrated a wide range of technologies into a single coordinated system of printing with moveable type.¹ At this time European paper (made from flax and hemp) was already a fairly mature product, having been introduced into Europe 100 to 150 years earlier.  New, oil-based inks, unsuitable for Velum but perfect for paper were mixed with varnish and soot by Gutenberg to create thick pasty inks that would stick to the type in his printing press. The pressing mechanism itself came from similar ones used to produce wine and olive oil. These presses were used to create intense, but even, pressure across the entire surface of the paper, creating a strong consistent image.²

But what made it all economically feasible was Gutenberg's primary innovation: metal moveable type. Moveable type had already been invented in China much earlier using ceramic characters. However, the large variety of characters in the Chinese language prevented it's wide-spread adoption, and all indications are that Gutenberg had no knowledge of his Chinese predecessors. Gutenberg's invention spread quickly and within 15 years had been copied up and down the Rhine valley and into Italy.³

Moveable type is fashioned in three stages. The first stage is to carve the needed character (in reverse) into the tip of a small bar of iron. This iron bar becomes a "punch" and is forcibly hammered into a small strip of copper to make a forward impression. The strip of copper is then placed at the bottom of a mould into which molten lead is poured, reversing the impression one last time and creating a single character of type (called a 'sort'). Early professional typecasters who manufactured sorts of moveable type could create as many as 4,000 characters an hour.⁴

Once the sorts were created, typesetters would line them up in reverse order in rows to make words and lines, and then stack the rows to make paragraphs, and then wedge the whole thing into a frame (called a 'chase') which was placed into the printing press. To print each page of text the printer would do the following: 1) Smear Ink on the metal rows of text, 2) place a piece of blank paper on top (oftentimes using a special frame), and 3) Press the paper into the text using a big flat platen screwed down from the top.⁵

Unfortunately, it took Gutenberg two tries to create moveable type. His first attempt produced text too large to be used economically: too much paper would be consumed for each book. When he went back to his investor to obtain additional financing, Johann Fust forced unfavorable terms on Gutenberg, and after the Gutenberg bible was produced Fust dissolved the partnership and went into the printing and publishing business with Gutenberg's partner, Peter Schoeffer. This left Gutenberg to limp along by himself with various printing projects (and some of the original equipment) until his death in 1468.⁶

Printing Music: Partial Solutions

Printing of alphabetic text for a book can actually be a pretty sloppy process and still yield acceptable results. This is because each character of text is an independent symbol, floating on the page. It is no great problem if any one character shifts by a small amount, or if the entire page is slightly shifted or tilted in relation to other pages.

Early printers who wished to include music in their books quickly ran up against the primary difficulty of music printing:  staff lines, which caused enormous problems.⁷  Characters are no longer independent objects floating on a page, but are now notes drawn on top of staff lines. How could one symbol be reliably printed on top of another?

The first printed book containing music was the Mainz Psalter, produced by Guttenberg's successors, Fust and Schoeffer,⁸ which also has the historical distinction of being the first book to be printed in color. Notice the careful wording of the previous sentence. The Mainz Psalter did not actually print the music. Rather, the music was added by hand after the pages were printed.⁹

Many printers solved the problem of printing music in a similar, if half hearted, fashion. Sometimes blank spaces were left with no music or lines at all (as was the case with the Mainz Psalter), sometimes the staff lines were printed with the notes added later by hand, sometimes the notes were printed with the staff lines added later. For example, many early Missale Romanum (by Ulrich Han, Antonio Zarotto, and others) were produced in the early 1470's with blank space left for hand-drawn music.¹⁰ An early example of music notes printed without the lines is Franciscus Niger's Grammatica of 1480, some copies of which still exist without the lines.¹¹

Printing the staves without the music, in addition to sidestepping the fundamental problem of music printing, allowed publishers to tailor their music to different markets. This was necessary at the time since there were several different types of plainchant notation in common use: Roman, Ambrosian, Gothic, and Hungarian.¹²  For these reasons, the printing of staff lines without music lasted well into the 16^th century.¹³

Printing with Woodcuts

50 years or more before Gutenberg introduced the printing press, woodcuts were used for printing images and pictures.¹⁴ To create a woodcut, a reverse image would be drawn on a block of wood, and any part of the surface not drawn on would be carefully carved away. The resulting image would be inked and pressed into paper.

Since moveable type and woodcuts use basically the same process (a raised, inked, reverse image) it was an easy extension to include woodblocks in the chase along with the moveable type to create illustrated pages of books. Pages of mixed text and illustrations could then be printed with a single impression. Early examples of books with woodcut illustrations include the 'lavishly illustrated' Liber Chronicarum (Nuremberg Chronicle) (1457) and the 'lovely' Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Poliphilo's Dream about the Strife of Love) (1463).¹⁵

And so, early printers of music were able to avoid all issues of music typography by simply creating woodcuts of the music, as if the music were freeform illustrations, and this was done quite frequently. For example, Franciscus Niger's Grammatica of 1480 (an example of typeset notes without staff lines) was reprinted in 1485 using woodcuts instead. In 1487, the first complete polyphonic composition printed with staves was created, the Musices Opusculum printed by Ugo Ruggerio in Bologna.¹⁶ Six years later, Woodcuts were used for the first secular polyphonic printing, the Historia Baetica, printed by Eucharius Silber in Rome.¹⁷ The first rounded note heads are also found in woodcuts, J.F. Locher's Historia de rege frantie¹⁸, perhaps because they were easier to carve.

Printing with woodcuts, however, had many technical difficulties. First, mistakes made in carving the wood were difficult, if not impossible to correct. Second, the frail nature of wood (in comparison to metal) meant that woodcuts could only be used for a limited number of printings before staff lines and note stems began to break off. This was made even more difficult by the nature of music notation, which is primarily made up of thin lines (unlike pictorial illustration which is more flexible). Finally, woodcuts were expensive to produce and required skilled craftsmen. For all these reasons, woodcuts were most often limited to small musical examples, such as might be used for music theory textbooks.¹⁹

Even so, woodcuts continued to be used into the 16^th century for several reasons:  1) they were popular books with many reprints, 2) competing printers held monopolies on moveable type foundries, or 3) because no type foundries were available for regional notations (such as Ambrosian plainchant notation).²⁰

Systems using Multiple Impressions

Early examples of printing both staves and notes with moveable type used multiple impressions to print a single page. For example, a first impression would be used for the words, a second for the staff lines, and a third for the notes. This could be reduced to two impressions: words and notes first and staff lines last.

Such 'multiple impression' techniques required the highest level of craftsmanship: since notes and staff lines are printed at different times, accuracy is paramount. Notes could not drift within the chase for fear that they would drift to a different staff line. Pages had to be placed in the press very precisely. A page which was slightly tilted or mis-aligned would cause notes to drift off the staff at one side or the other. Certainly, early printers would have had to devise new, more exacting techniques to place the paper within the printing press.

The earliest example of printing both staves and notes with moveable type, the Constance Graduale, occurs around 1473, actually before the first known examples of woodcut, and while other, manually intensive methods were just getting started. Probably the needs of printing a Graduale, with extensive quantities of music, drove the printer (still unknown) to create the musical sorts needed to set musical text.²¹  Regardless, only a single example of the Constance Graduale exists, and there is no evidence that this early example of printing had any lasting influence on the music printing industry.²²

A better example occurs just a few years later, printed in Rome by Ulrich Han and Stephan Planck. It was a reprint of an earlier Missale Romanum, this time with music. It is the first clearly dated and attributed example of complete early music printing. It used a double-impression printing:  first printing the red text and red staves, and second printing the black text and black notes.

The 1476 Missale Romanum is a masterpiece of music printing, far beyond the experimental stages of the craft. The staves and notes are well designed and cut, printed clearly and strongly on paper or vellum, precisely registered for the proper placement of black notes on red staves…²³

Ulrich Han only printed this one book with music, but his methods quickly spread throughout Europe. Just a year later, an abbreviated Graduale was printed by the brothers Damiano and Bernard Moilli. This work contained vastly more music than had been produced by Han: 212 pages of music compared to just 33 pages of music in the Missale Romanum.²⁴  By 1500, just 24 years after Han's initial printing, some 66 different printers working in 25 different towns had created liturgical works containing music using the double-impression technique, including Missale Sarum printed by R. Pyson in London in 1500.²⁵

Printing with multiple impressions became fully mature in the hands of Ottaviano Petrucci who raised the technique to its highest level of craftsmanship. Claiming that he had discovered the secret to printing "canto figurado", Petrucci was granted a 20 year monopoly on printing such music as well as music with lute tablature. Petrucci's "discovery" was, in fact,  merely the processing of printing with multiple impressions, albeit with 'much finer type material.' Early books (such as the wildly popular Harmonice musices odhecaton A) were printed with a three impression process (notes, staves, and text), a process which was reduced by 1503 to a double impression.²⁶

During his 23 years of music publishing, Petrucci appears to have been very successful, producing over 59 volumes and many reprints, including many firsts:  the first secular polyphonic music printed with moveable type, the first lute tablature printed with moveable type, the first book dedicated to the music of a single composer (Josquin Des Prez), and the first books dedicated to frottole, published in 1504.²⁷ Other than the crucial role he played in preserving the music of his time, Petrucci's influence is still felt in the typesetting rules for music that he established, many of which (such as the size of the note stem in relation to the height of the staff) are still in use today.²⁸

Single Impression Systems

A series of ad-hoc attempts were made in the early 16^th century to print music and text all at once, in a single impression. Such a system would be dramatically less expensive than the multiple impression systems not only by reducing the time spent on a single page, but also needing less skilled printers and less accurate machinery to execute.

Several early attempts appear to have been created to fill immediate needs, and were then abandoned once the job was complete. For example, the very first music printed in England by printer Wynkyn de Worde was in 1495, the Policronicon, and may also be the first, moveable type single impression music printed anywhere. However, it really doesn't count, being only eight notes long, with no clef, and made up of non-musical sorts (in much the same way that pictures are rendered in ASCII E‑mail messages today).²⁹ Better examples are found in the Salzburg missals printed by Liechtenstein in 1507, and Winterburg in 1510, who both used a series of single impression characters to print limited amounts of music in the Salzburg liturgy.³⁰

Somewhat more significant are the efforts of John Rastell in London, who invented a single impression system and used it for a limited number of printings, of which two fragments (roughly dated to 1523) and Coverdale's Goostly Psalmes (1535) are the only survivors. Along with these early examples of single impression printing, Rastell may also have executed the first mensural music in England, the first song printed with a theatrical work in England, the first broadside printed with music anywhere, and the first attempt at printing a score by any printer. And yet, John Rastell does not appear to have inspired any successors.³¹

The secret to printing music with a single impression is to combine the notes with the staff lines into a single character of type. Such a system, of course, requires a much larger number of characters than separating the staff lines and notes into two separate impressions. With a single impression system, one will need to have characters not only for notes of different rhythmic values, but also for notes (and clefs) at varying positions on the staff. While the single impression system is generally more forgiving of inaccuracies in typesetting and printing, care must still be taken to line up the staff fragments as straight as possible, otherwise the staff lines will appear jagged. The shakiness of staff lines may actually get worse over longer printing runs as the sorts work themselves loose.

The single impression system was eventually proved successful by Pierre Attaignant who used the technique from 1527 to 1550, ultimately printing over 1,500 musical works from the late 15^th and early 16^th centuries.³² His methods were quickly copied and less than 5 years after Attaignant's first printing, other single impression works were produced (Motetti del fiore printed by Jacques Moderne in Lyons and the Odarum Horatii concentus printed by Christian Egenolff of Frankfurt). Other printers in other cities and countries followed suit: 1534 in Nuremburg, 1537 in Naples, 1538 in Venice, 1540 in Antwerp, and reintroduced into England around 1553 by W. Seres ³³. This system would survive for the next 200 years.

Early Engraving

While single impression systems represented a leap forward in productivity, as is often the case with new technology they represented a step backwards for the composer. With the notes and staff lines fixed into the same moveable type, it becomes difficult, if not impossible to do chords (as required by keyboard music), multiple voices per staff, slurs, ties, and other musical ornaments and articulations.

A solution to these problems, intaglio engraving, first requires that the music be engraved (scratched or indented) on to a large flat sheet of copper. To print a page, ink is smeared over the copper sheet, settling into the engraved lines, after which the excess ink on top is wiped away. Wet paper is then pressed into the sheet at great pressure to soak up the ink still stuck into the engraved lines. Because the engraving process does not use pre-cast units of moveable type, it places no limits on the music or notation that can be reproduced.

There is evidence that intaglio engraving was being practiced as early as 1436, but the process wasn't really popular until the 1540s (for printing maps), probably because the machinery required to print pages from engraved plates had to produce much more pressure than standard moveable type printing.³⁴

As with single impression printing, music printed via engravings had many early experiments. The earliest dated example of printed music using engravings is Francesco Marcolini's Intabolatura di liuto di diversi, around 1536 and, much later, Vincenzo Galilei's famous Dialogo della musica antica et della moderna printed in Florence by Giorgio Marescotti in 1581.³⁵

Around this time, the invention of the rolling press, specifically designed to print pages from engraved copper plates made printing from engravings economically feasible, and the technology quickly spread throughout Europe. Music from engravings was produced in Rome in 1586 (printed by Simone Verovio), in England in 1612-13, the Netherlands in 1615, and France and Germany by 1620.³⁶

Conclusions

The period from 1470 to 1600 was an incredibly active time for printers and publishers of music. Many new techniques were tried, abandoned, and tried again by many different printers working all over Europe.

The three most important developments: the use of moveable type, the single impression system, and music engraving all exhibited similar startup cycles. Each was tried very early on by printers striving to solve individual problems and each was initially abandoned.

In all cases, an early champion was required to mature the process and demonstrate how it could be used profitably. The first such champion was clearly Ottaviano Petrucci, followed closely by Pierre Attaignant, and (to a lesser extent) Simone Verovio. The long standing success of these champions inspired others to copy their techniques all over Europe and has had lasting influence on look of printed music ever since.

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Notes

¹   Geoffrey Rubinstein, 'Printing: History and Development', Jones Telecommunications & Multimedia Encyclopedia (Accessed 12/1/2002), <http://www.digitalcentury.com>.

²   Richard W. Clement, 'Medieval and Renaissance Book Production - Printed Books', ORB: The Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies,   (Accessed 12/1/2002), <http://orb.rhodes.edu>.

³   Clement.

⁴   Clement.

⁵   Clement.

⁶   Clement.

⁷   J. Evan Kreider, The Printing of Music 1480-1680 (Vancouver: The Alcuin Society, 1980), p. 2.

⁸   Stanley Boorman, 'Printing and Publishing of Music', 'I. Printing / 1. Early Stages', The New Grove Dictionary of Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 12/1/2002), <http://www.grovemusic.com>

⁹   Mary Kay Duggan, Italian Music Incunabula, Printers and Type (California: University of California Press, 1992), p. 1.

¹⁰  Duggan, p. 44.

¹¹  Kreider, p. 2.

¹²  Duggan, p. 6.

¹³  Boorman, 'I. Printing, 1: Early Stages'

¹⁴  Author unknown, 'A Renaissance Invention: The Repeatable Image -- Woodcut', The Metropolitan Museum of Art Website  (Accessed 12/1/2002), <http://www.metmuseum.org>.

¹⁵  www.metmuseum.org.

¹⁶  Kreider, p. 2-3.

¹⁷  Duggan, p. 65.

¹⁸  Boorman, 'I. Printing, 3: Printing from type, (ii) Early history.'

¹⁹  Boorman, 'I. Printing, 2: Woodblock printing'

²⁰  Duggan, p. 68.

²¹  Duggan, p. 11.

²²  Boorman, 'I. Printing, 1: Early Stages'

²³  Duggan, p. 83.

²⁴  Duggan, p. 89.

²⁵  Boorman, 'I. Printing, 1: Early Stages'

²⁶  Stanley Boorman, 'Petrucci, Ottaviano', The New Grove Dictionary of Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 12/1/2002), <http://www.grovemusic.com>

²⁷ Donald Jay Grout, Claude V. Palisca, A History of Western Music, 6^th ed. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001), p. 151.

²⁸  Boorman, 'I. Printing, 3: Printing from type, (ii) Early history.'

²⁹  Kreider, p. 4.

³⁰  Boorman, 'I. Printing, 3: Printing from type, (ii) Early history.'

³¹  Boorman, 'I. Printing, 3: Printing from type, (ii) Early history.'

³²  Grout, p. 194.

³³  Robert Steele, The Earliest English Music Printing (1903; rpt. Germany: Hain - Meissenheim, 1965), p. 6.

³⁴  Boorman, 'I. Printing, 4: Engraving, (i) Early history.'

³⁵  Boorman, 'I. Printing, 4: Engraving, (i) Early history.'

³⁶  Boorman, 'I. Printing, 4: Engraving, (i) Early history.'

My Thoughts

I found this information really interesting, It was clear how much effort was gone into the printing of music as there were so many other factors you needed to consider when printing music, you had to take into account the notes the lyrics and the stave lines, let alone the clefs etc. Over the Renaissance period they came up with several different ways to print music, all of which solved a piece of the puzzle for music printing. The printing press made music available to the masses with books on music theory accessible to those who could afford it leading to a mass spread of musical knowledge. I think this is an interesting topic to look into I will try and see if I can dig up any more information.

Extended Research

The Relationship between the printing press and music:

http://www.articledashboard.com/Article/Relationship-Between-the-Printing-Press-and-Music/1645657

When thinking about the invention of the printing press an immediate response is to think about the impact that turning point in history had on literature. Often the musical significance of this incredible invention is overlooked.This article will outline the early history of the printing press. Almost as soon as the printing press was developed, type designs were introduced. Type designs were created and linked to printing in different countries.

Even today, it is possible to see the effects that the printing press has on modern living. With having written words it was possible to be expressive through writing. Printed word established the relationship between art and printing. Decorative printing was a step in developing art in printing. To understand the link between printing and music it is important to know the difference between literature printing and musical notation. One obvious difference is that music texts are for performance. Another significant difference is that music texts are deciphered twice: first, by the performer and then by the listener.

The printing of music creates a direct connection between the composer and the performer. It is essential that the printing of music is as accurate as possible as this will be the only communication between the creation and reproduction.

Before the printing press original manuscripts, or hand written copies, were used to perform from. The printing press changed the size of pieces from the original manuscripts. Reading off of a smaller score puts constrictions to the performance of the work.

Published music was invented before the invention of the printing press. Early published music was reproduced by engraving on plates. This process was time consuming and very difficult.

Despite the fact that the printing press was invented in the fifteenth century, the first copyright law was not in place until the early eighteenth century. The purpose of having a copyright varies throughout the world. When copyright was first established it was used as a noun, literally meaning having the right in the copy. Having the right copy refers to giving credit to the individual who created the original idea. The shift today is the use of copyright as a verb – the right to copy.

The printing press put many constraints on music. One constraint was the interpretation of music was limited. As the performance text grew further away from the composer’s original manuscript, the musical interpretation grew further away as well. Also, as mentioned earlier, there was a size difference in the paper produced from the printing press and original manuscripts. This size different changes the way the performer visually reads a piece.

With music being reproduced by printing presses and publishing houses, the need for a music editor arose. There are many disadvantages to have an editor working with music scores. A large problem musicians face is working with scores that have been over edited. Another related problem is the fact that many editors have not done significant research before they add material to the score.

With the rise of publishers, numerous editions are created, printing the same material. It is possible to buy two different editions of a piece with a discrepancy in something even as basic as having the correct notes. Some editions are not as researched as others, creating interpretations that may not be close to the composer’s original intention.  

Consolidation Era

After the invention of the printing press, from around 1550 until 1800, the consolidation era was established. As mentioned earlier, no technical advancements were made to the printing press during this time. Neither were there any new inventions, regarding the printing press, made during this time. The consolidation era, as the name suggests, stabilized the printing industry.

During this time the working middle class people had the opportunity to learn how to read and write. Before this it was reserved as a privilege for the wealthy to be literate. Because more people were now reading it was necessary to provide information to people for them to read. The general public’s “desire for quick information and for regular entertainment brought into existence the periodical press.”

The first public library was developed during the consolidation era. Before libraries existed with manuscripts but were for private use only, owned by various people like Julius Caesar.

Censorship of printed word was established in the consolidation era. It was the responsibility of the lay and the church to censor the publications. Printers and publishers did not always appreciate censorship and would use “the smallest possible size, the largest possible types, and every other device which a century-old fight against censorship had taught them.”

Nineteenth Century Printing

In the nineteenth century the technique of printing gradually changed. There was a hesitation from the public to advance further in the printing press in order to avoid mechanization. By the late nineteenth century, “the concept of mechanization [began] to make an impact on letter-founding, type-composition, and bookbinding, and not until the late 1880s did the combined casting and composing machine become a commercial reality.” 

 
The nineteenth century brought about technical progress in the printing press. This was the century that began the slow process of turning printing from a trade into an industry.

The strict regulations for censorship had been lifted during this century. Censorship was now “based on voluntary [agreements] of the parties concerned and not on compulsory measures of the authorities.”
It was during this century that governments used the press “for large scale, direct, and incessant appeals and orders to the masses.” The Revolutionary and Napoleonic France governments were first to use press this way. 

 

TYPE DESIGN

 
After the death of Gutenberg in 1468, the printing press had spread throughout many different countries. By the middle of the sixteenth century every nation developed a certain type design. Type design throughout history has always had a deeper, more political meaning than it appears at first. When Roman and Italic types were invented they represented the humanism in people. 

The type design of Germany, Russia, and Turkey represented the resistance to humanism. The importance of type design can be noted by “the recent transition to the ‘Latin’ alphabet by the Germans and Turks is a major step towards the unity of world civilization; just as the refusal of post-Lenin Russia to abandon the Cyrillic letter – nay, its progressive imposition on the Soviet colonials – is a significant omen of the deep cleavage between East and West.”

 

ART IN PRINTING

After discussing type design it is possible to see the relationship between art and printing. With the beginning of printed books there was a high level of technical achievements but this was “combined with great beauty of design, that the printing of music began.” Visual effects of printed music are vital to the overall effect the music will have on the performer and audience. Engraving of music connected the visual aspect of music to the notating process. This process of engraving “naturally led to a great increase in the use of pictorial title pages and decorated borders.” Illustrations were sometimes used, even as far as to having comic pictures between staves and in the margins of the music.

 

Difference Between Printing and Music

There is a large difference between printing music and printing solely verbal text. A quote from King’s Four Hundred Years of Music Printing summarizes the difference between literature and musical notation:
“the letters forming a word represent a concept to be conveyed by the eye to the brain, in music the note, whether accompanied by a text or not, is primarily an instruction to bring into action lungs or fingers, or both combined, in order to produce a sound at a certain pitch and of a certain duration.”

The difficulty with musical notation is that the symbols need to be made as clearly and precise as possible.
There are two aspects of musical notation: horizontality and verticality. Horizontality refers to the horizontal aspects of music notation. One point in horizontality is the relationship between each note. This includes the intervallic relationship from note to note. Another aspect of horizontality is “the changes in spacing between one note or group of notes and the next, as required by changes in time-values.”

The vertical aspect of musical notation sets it completely apart from verbal text, as the concept of writing two words at the same time is not practical. The vertical part of musical notation is having the two or more notes in the same alignment on the stave. This vertical arrangement is important in vocal works as “a precise vertical relationship has also to be established between the notes on the stave and the syllables of the underlying text.”

If the printed musical score is altered in any way the horizontality and verticality could potential have a different meaning to the reader. This could in turn alter the performance and bring the work further away from the composer’s original idea.

Another main difference between music texts and literature is “the fact that musical texts are performance texts. Musical texts presume a musical performance, with the result that music as manifest in print leads a dual life as text and performance.” Understanding that in earlier times music reached people mainly by performances it is important to note that “any history of the musical cultures of print must engage performative issues.”

Deciphering music as a performative text adds certain angles that are not present in literature. It is important to note that “performance and print both shape the way music conveys its meaning; yet while historians of music have long been cognizant of the former – that performers interpret and mold the meaning of the texts they realize – they have rarely theorized the implications of print in similar terms.” Often performers will trust what is written on the page instead of looking for the true intention of the composer. The effect that printed music has on performance is so great that it “[stands] alongside performance in the triangle if [forms] with composers and audiences.”

Musical texts are deciphered twice which does not occur often in literature. Musical text meanings “unfold twice as they are “read” both by musicians and then by audiences. In the first instance, the black signs cast across the pages of musical scores give musicians instructions for how to perform a given piece; the notes help musicians to produce a reading of a piece, public or private, whether with instruments, voice, or both.” The only link that the audience has to the music is what the performer portrays and the only thing that the performer can give the audience is what he takes from the musical score.

Due to the fact that reading music produces an audible sound, it is understood that this type of reading is not transparent, like most literature texts. Interpretation of musical scores creates “variant readings with each performance, impressing their individual marks upon the works they play.” Because of this fact it is argued that musicians “approximate texts.” The appearance of the musical text is essential for a successful interpretation as it can “[disrupt] the linear continuum between composer and audience in the same way that musical performances do. Print complicates and expands this middle ground by multiplying the material forms of texts and thereby multiplying their meanings.”

It is possible to compare the performance of musical scores to reading a book to someone that is illiterate. The musicians “mediate what for many listeners is an illegible text, pages of hieroglyphs that require special literacy: the score. Notation alone sets music apart from literature.”

Like someone telling a story, the performance of a musical text “becomes available to an audience of listeners who in turn “read” the music they hear, responding to it, making sense of it, multiplying its meanings.”

Another difficulty facing printing of musical scores is the distance that the text is kept from the performer. In a performance “music is usually placed further away from the eye than is the text of a book when being read, the factors of distance and proportion produce special problems of design.” The musical text needs to be extra clear because of the distance kept from the performer.

HISTORY OF MUSIC PRINTING

The concept of representing music by notation is accredited to the Greeks since “musical notation is as old as the alphabet, for that is as far as our knowledge goes; and the Greeks were the earliest to make use of this principle.” By Pope Gregory’s time, around the middle of the sixth century, it was important to write down music as it was realized that “unless sounds are retained in the memory, they perish, because they cannot be written.”

The time right after the invention of the printing press printed music became more popular. By 1465 “printing began to supersede manuscript music.” Despite the increase in using the printing press “music printing remained… very far behind the progress made in other branches of typography.”

The first record of printed music dates back to 1473. This document “only contains five notes of music.” Even with the little amount of musical notation in this work “it actually [formed] the foundation of music printing.” The first book of printed music was made around this same time. It is a Gradual that “lacks both a date and a printer’s name, but the type used to print the text is identical with that of the ‘Constance Breviary” one copy of which was lubricated in 1473.” Another clue as to the date of this book is the fact that the press that was used to publish this book had a short life span.

The first printed music with an actual date is a Missal from Rome that was dated October 12, 1476. This music was “printed in Roman notation, with initials in red or blue, and touches of yellow in the capitals, all added by hand.”

Even though the printing press had been invented it was common in this time period to add details by hand. This would include adding colors or extra details that the printing press was not capable of doing. Sometimes the music staves would be blank and the notes would be added by hand.

By around 1690 improvements were being made to the design of printed music. John Heptinstall came up with “the system of joining together the hooks of the quavers and semiquavers.” Quavers and semiquavers refer to eighth and sixteenth notes that before this time had been written with separate flags. Hepinstall “also introduced a further improvement, that of making the heads of the notes round instead of lozenge-shaped.”

Even with these improvements in the seventeenth century there were still weaknesses in the printing of music. The weakness of movable type with musical notation “lay in its clumsiness and lack of flexibility when used for printing chords and florid music.”

The year 1683 marked the beginning of sheet music. This is quite different from sheet music as we know it today, as this was created by using metal sheets to engrave the music onto. Thomas Cross “was practically the inventor of sheet music” and after copying Purcell’s Sonatas of III parts signed his name on the bottom.

By the middle of the seventeenth century the variety of music expanded to include more concerti and symphonies, requiring more instruments and printed parts. This increase in parts meant that a “large quantity of separate parts required had to be supplied in multiple copies more quickly than was usually possible by the use of movable type or by the employment of handcopyists.”

The beginning of the eighteenth century marked the decline of music printed from type. The reason for this decrease
“was that musical composition had become more elaborate and the old movable type was found inadequate to represent it. Copperplate engraving, which was then flourishing and largely used, was, therefore, naturally adopted. This method was, however, found expensive, so that it became in a measure superseded by the method of punching the notes on pewter plates.”

Another important milestone in the eighteenth century was the printing of the first music book, in the United States, from movable type. This book was Fünff schöne Geistliche Lieder, published in Germantown, Pennsylvania. It was published by Christoph Saur who was also responsible for designing the type.

At the end of the eighteenth century and the turn of the nineteenth century lithography was adopted as a primary source of printing music. Lithography involves “[writing] on [a] stone with greasy ink, and then [coating] the surgace with a mixture of water, acid and gum Arabic. Finally [inking] the whole, and the ink was absorbed solely by the writing. Thus an impression was left which could be taken directly from the surface of the stone.”

By the nineteenth century printing using lithography was not as common. This process was being switched from printing on stones to printing on metal plates “[making] printing easier and quicker.” This process produced many large works in the eighteenth century including eight full scores of Rossini operas and the seven-volume Raccolta di musica sacra. 

Later in the nineteenth century lithographic stones were replaced by plates made of zinc and aluminum which increased the speed of production. More advances in printing have developed due to the invention of photographic techniques and other mechanical devices. It is possible with these machines to produce elaborate scores. However, despite the potential these new machines have “the once tasteful and diversified art of music printing has generally reached a level of uniformity more widespread than at any time in its history. Failing a revolution in design or technique, the printed note now seems to have lost its former capacity to rival the range of processes and founts of type which were – and still are – available for the printing of books.”

CONSTRAINTS OF PRINTING PRESS ON MUSIC

The invention of the printing press indirectly puts constraints on the performance of music. Constraints include things such as limited music interpretation, over editing and having numerous editions of the same piece of music.

In the Renaissance, when the printing press was first put to use, composers were worried about the effect that the printing press would have on their compositions. They thought that “print represented a loss of control” and compared their printed works to “children sent out alone into the world.”

With a standardized look modern printing has, printed music detracts from the art of the original manuscript. The desire of musical scores is to create a work that is as close to the composer’s original idea. Editions that have “manuscript sources, …, [promise] a version of the text that [seems] closer to the author’s original or final intentions.”

Many problems occur with the editors of music. It has been found that “the variants introduced by earlier editors, the errors of compilers and typesetters, and the abbreviations used in early printed books all [stand] in the way of recovering the author’s authentic text.” In many editions something as basic as correct notes are not consistent which creates the need to identify the errors and correct them.

The invention of the printing press had a significant effect on history from that point and after. Type designs were created by various countries where the printing press had quickly spread to many countries.

Art is connected with printing in many ways. The printing press was another way for people to express their creativity. This could be done with adding color or other hand written details.

The link between music and printing is essential to understand before one can see the impact that the invention of the printing press had on music. The differences between literature and musical notation are significant. Musical texts are performance texts and are deciphered twice.

The history of printed music dates earlier than the invention of the printing press. The early forms of printing music ranged from engraving onto copper plates to carving pieces of wood.

Printed music adds many constraints on the performance of music. The musical interpretation can suffer from reading off of various scores. Also, it is easy for editors to make mistakes, which in turn causes confusion for the performer. Related to this, with many editions it is difficult for the performer to know which edition is the most accurate.

The printing of books is not what makes Gutenberg’s invention so significant in history. The important thing to note about the printing press is its ability to produce a large amount of identical copies. This principle, with the help of technology, has made it possible to produce millions of identical newspapers within a few hours. It is this principle that “has made Gutenberg’s invention a turning point in the history of civilization.”

By: Loni White

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

Resources: Dichter, Harry, and Elliot Sharpiro. Handbook of Early American Sheet Music 1768 – 1889. New York: Dover, 1977. Gamble, William. Music Engraving and Printing. New York: Arno Press, 1979. King, A. Hyatt. Four Hundred Years of Music Printing. Great Britain: Eyre and Spottiswoode Limited, 1964. Steinberg, S.H. Five Hundred Years of Printing. England: Penguin Books, Ltd. 1955. Van Orden, Kate. Music and the Cultures of Print. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 2000.

The Renaisance, Printing and Thinking

http://www.learner.org/interactives/renaissance/printing.html

When Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1445, he forever changed the lives of people in Europe and, eventually, all over the world. Previously, bookmaking entailed copying all the words and illustrations by hand. Often the copying had been done onto parchment, animal skin that had been scraped until it was clean, smooth, and thin. The labor that went into creating them made each book very expensive. Because Gutenberg's press could produce books quickly and with relatively little effort, bookmaking became much less expensive, allowing more people to buy reading material.  

The Demand for Books Grows

In the Middle Ages, books had been costly and education rare; only the clergy had been regular readers and owners of books. Most books had been written in Latin, considered the language of scholarship. In the Renaissance, the educated middle classes, who could now afford books, demanded works in their own languages. Furthermore, readers wanted a greater variety of books. Almanacs, travel books, chivalry romances, and poetry were all published at this time. Simultaneously, a means of printing music was also invented, making music available at a reasonable cost. As the demand for books grew, the book trade began to flourish throughout Europe, and industries related to it, such as papermaking, thrived as well. The result of all of this was a more literate populace and a stronger economy.

 

 

Humanism Emerges

 

Books also helped to spread awareness of a new philosophy that emerged when Renaissance scholars known as humanists returned to the works of ancient writers. Previously, during the Middle Ages, scholars had been guided by the teachings of the church, and people had concerned themselves with actions leading to heavenly rewards. The writings of ancient, pagan Greece and Rome, called the "classics," had been greatly ignored. To study the classics, humanists learned to read Greek and ancient Latin, and they sought out manuscripts that had lain undisturbed for nearly 2,000 years. 

The humanists rediscovered writings on scientific matters, government, rhetoric, philosophy, and art. They were influenced by the knowledge of these ancient civilizations and by the emphasis placed on man, his intellect, and his life on Earth. 

The Impact of the Printing Press : 

http://www.flowofhistory.com/category/export/html/40

The printing press had dramatic effects on European civilization.  Its immediate effect was that it spread information quickly and accurately.  This helped create a wider literate reading public.  However, its importance lay not just in how it spread information and opinions, but also in what sorts of information and opinions it was spreading.  There were two main directions printing took, both of which were probably totally unforeseen by its creators.

First of all, more and more books of a secular nature were printed, with especially profound results in science.  Scientists working on the same problem in different parts of Europe especially benefited, since they could print the results of their work and share it accurately with a large number of other scientists.  They in turn could take that accurate, not miscopied, information, work with it and advance knowledge and understanding further.  Of course, they could accurately share their information with many others and the process would continue.  By the 1600's, this process would lead to the Scientific Revolution of the Enlightenment, which would radically alter how Europeans viewed the world and universe.

The printing press also created its share of trouble as far as some people were concerned.  It took book copying out of the hands of the Church and made it much harder for the Church to control or censor what was being written.  It was hard enough to control what Wycliffe and Hus wrote with just a few hundred copies of their works in circulation.  Imagine the problems the Church had when literally thousands of such works could be produced at a fraction of the cost.  Each new printing press was just another hole in the dyke to be plugged up, and the Church had only so many fingers with which to do the job.  It is no accident that the breakup of Europe's religious unity during the Protestant Reformation corresponded with the spread of printing.  The difference between Martin Luther's successful Reformation and the Hussites' much more limited success was that Luther was armed with the printing press and knew how to use it with devastating effect.

Some people go as far as to say that the printing press is the most important invention between the invention of writing itself and the computer.  Although it is impossible to justify that statement to everyone's satisfaction, one can safely say that the printing press has been one of the most powerful inventions of the modern era.  It has advanced and spread knowledge and molded public opinion in a way that nothing before the advent of television and radio in the twentieth century could rival.  If it were not able to, then freedom of the press would not be such a jealously guarded liberty as it is today.

New patterns of thought

Whether one sees the Renaissance as a period of originality or just drawing upon older cultures, it did generate four ideas that have been and still are central to Western Civilization: secularism, humanism, individualism, and skepticism.

1. Secularism comes from the word secular, meaning of this world.  Medieval civilization had been largely concerned with religion and the next world.  The new economic and political horizons and opportunities that were opening up for Western Europe in the High and Late Middle Ages got people more interested in this world.  During the Renaissance people saw this life as worth living for its own sake, not just as preparation for the next world.  The art in particular exhibited this secular spirit, showing detailed and accurate scenery, anatomy, and nature, whereas medieval artists generally ignored such things since their paintings were for the glory of God.  This is not to say that Renaissance people had lost faith in God.  Religion was still the most popular theme for paintings.  But during the Renaissance people found other things worth living for besides the afterlife.
   
   
2. Humanism goes along with secularism in that it makes human beings, not God, the center of attention.  The quotation at the top of this reading certainly emphasizes this point.  So did Renaissance art, which portrayed the human body as a thing of beauty in its own right, not like some medieval "comic strip" character whose only reason to exist was for the glory of God.  Along those lines, Renaissance philosophers saw humans as intelligent creatures capable of reason (and questioning authority) rather than being mindless pawns helplessly manipulated by God.  Even the term for Renaissance philosophers, "humanists", shows how the focus of peoples' attention had shifted from Heaven and God to this world and human beings.  It also described the group of scholars who drew upon the more secular Greek and Roman civilizations for inspiration.
   
   
3. Individualism takes humanism a step further by saying that individual humans were capable of great accomplishments.  The more communal, group oriented society and mentality of the Middle Ages was giving way to a belief in the individual and his achievements.  The importance of this was that it freed remarkable individuals and geniuses, such as Leonardo da Vinci to live up to their potential without being held back by a medieval society that discouraged innovation.
   Besides the outstanding achievements of Leonardo, one sees individualism expressed in a wide variety of ways during the Renaissance.  Artists started signing their paintings, thus showing individualistic pride in their work.  Also, the more communal guild system was being replaced by the more individualistic system of capitalism, which encouraged private enterprise.
   
   
4. Skepticism, which promoted curiosity and the questioning of authority, was largely an outgrowth of the other three Renaissance ideas.  The secular spirit of the age naturally put Renaissance humanists at odds with the Church and its purely religious values and explanations of the universe.  Humanism and individualism, with their belief in the ability of human reason, raised challenges to the Church's authority and theories, which in turn led to such things as the Protestant Reformation, the Age of Exploration and the Scientific Revolution, all of which would radically alter how Western Europe views the world and universe.  These four new ideas of secularism, humanism, individualism, and skepticism led to innovations in a variety of fields during the Renaissance, the most prominent being literature and learning, art, science, the Age of Exploration, and the Protestant Reformation.
   

Literature and learning

 Throughout, the Middle Ages were centered on the Church.  Consequently, most books were of a religious nature.  There were Greek and Roman texts stashed away in the monasteries, but few people paid much attention to them.  All that changed during the Renaissance.  For one thing, increased wealth and the invention of the printing press created a broader public that could afford an education and printed books.  Most of these newly educated people were from the noble and middle classes.  Therefore, they wanted a more practical and secular education and books to prepare them for the real world of business and politics. 

 

In response to this, new schools were set up to give the sons of nobles and wealthy merchants an education with a broader and more secular curriculum than the Church provided: philosophy, literature, mathematics, history, and politics.  Naturally much of the basis for this new curriculum was Greek and Roman culture.  Classical authors such as Demosthenes and Cicero were used to teach students how to think, write, and speak clearly.  Greek and Roman history were used to teach object lessons in politics.  This curriculum provided the skills and knowledge seen as essential for an educated man back then, and served as the basis for school curriculums well into the twentieth century.  Only in recent decades has a more technical education largely replaced the curriculum established for us in the Renaissance.

Along the same lines, a more secular literature largely replaced the predominantly religious literature of the Middle Ages.  History, as a study of the past (Greek and Roman past in particular) in order to learn lessons for the future, was emerging.  So was another emerging new discipline deeply rooted in history: political science.  The father of this discipline was Nicolo Machiavelli (1469-1527).  His treatise on governing techniques, The Prince, urges the prince to carry on with whatever ruthless means were at his disposal.  This serves as a stark contrast to St. Augustine's concept of the "just war."

Another book of a secular nature was Castiglione's The Courtier, which spelled out the ideal education and qualities of a nobleman attending a prince's court.  Unlike the usually illiterate and rough mannered medieval noble, Castiglione's courtier should be versed in manners (such as not cleaning one's teeth in public with one's finger).  This ideal of the well-rounded "Renaissance Man" hearkens back to the Greek ideal of a well-rounded man and has continued to this day.

Art

Art is the one field most people associate with the Renaissance since it saw the most radical innovations and breaks with the Middle Ages.  Medieval art was religious in tone and for the glory of God.  As a result, artists neglected mundane details, thus making the art flat and lifeless.  Faces and bodies were cartoon like, having no individual features or anything approaching anatomical detail.  Other details such as background, perspective, proportion, and individuality were all virtually unknown. 

 

Renaissance art contrasted sharply with medieval art in all these respects.  More paintings were on secular themes, especially portraits.  And even the religious paintings paid a great deal of attention to glorifying the human form and accomplishments.  Starting with Giotto in the early 1300's, Renaissance artists increasingly perfected and used such things as background, perspective, proportion, and individuality.  In fact, Leonardo's detail was so good that botanists today can identify the kinds of plants he put into his paintings.

Although painting was especially prominent during the Renaissance, other art forms also flourished. For example, architecture broke somewhat with the medieval Gothic style during the Renaissance.  However, it was less innovative and relied more heavily on classical forms, in particular columns, arches, and domes as well as building on a massive scale.  Possibly the supreme example of this is the dome of St. Peter's in Rome which was designed by Michelangelo and towers 435 feet from the floor.  Music in the Renaissance saw developments that would later blossom into classical music.  Instruments were improved and the whole family of violins was developed.  Counterpoint (the blending of two melodies) and polyphony (interweaving several melodic lines) also emerged during this period.

Science

Science saw little advancement, but it was also important for future developments.  In particular, classical authorities were discovered who contradicted Aristotle, whose works were accepted by the Church almost as gospel.  Finding conflicting authorities forced Renaissance humanists to ask questions that would lead to developing new theories, which in turn would lead to the birth of modern science in the 1600's and 1700's.

The Age of Exploration

The Age of Exploration also showed Renaissance ideas at work.  It was secular in its interest in the world.  It certainly displayed skepticism by challenging accepted ideas about the world.  And the fact that it pitted individual captains against the forces of nature shows it was both humanistic and individualistic.

The Protestant Reformation

The protestant reformation was one other result of the Italian Renaissance.  The spirit of skepticism challenged the authority of the Church, thus opening the way for much more serious challenge later posed by the Protestants.  The Protestant Reformation, in turn, would pave the way for new patterns of thought in social, political, economic, and scientific matters. 

 

The Italian Renaissance is generally seen as lasting until about 1500, when Italy's political disunity attracted a devastating round of wars and invasions that ended its most innovative cultural period.  However, in the process, the invaders took the ideas of the Italian Renaissance back to Northern Europe and sparked what is known as the Northern Renaissance.