On this day in 1452, the first section of the Gutenberg Biblewas finished in Mainz, Germany, by the printer JohannesGutenberg. Little is known of Gutenberg's early history or hispersonal life except that he was born around the year 1400, theyoungest son of a wealthy merchant. But from the time of theappearance of his beautiful Bibles, he has left an indelible markon human culture.

Ancient books had primarily been written on scrolls, though aninnovation in the second century A.D. - that of the codex, asheaf of pages bound at one edge - gave us the familiar book formwe recognize today. Early codices were produced by hand by monksin scriptoriums, working with pen and ink, copying manuscriptsone page at a time so that even a small book would take months tocomplete and a book the size of the Bible, rich with color andilluminations, would take years.

Gutenberg's genius was to separate each element of thebeautiful, calligraphic blackletter script commonly used by thescribes into its most basic components - lowercase and capitalletters, punctuation, and the connected ligatures that werestandard in Medieval calligraphy - nearly 300 different shapesthat were then each cast in quantity and assembled to form words,lines, and full pages of text. He also invented a printing pressto use his type, researching and refining his equipment andprocesses over the course of several years. In 1440, Gutenbergwrote and printed copies of his own mysteriously titled book,Kunst und Aventur [Art and Enterprise], releasing his printingideas to the public, and by 1450 his movable-type printing presswas certainly in operation.

Only four dozen Gutenberg Bibles remain, and of these only 21are complete, but what Gutenberg created went far beyond thereach of those volumes. By beginning the European printingrevolution, he forever changed how knowledge was spread,democratized learning, and allowed for thoughts and ideas to bewidely disseminated throughout the known world. In his time,Gutenberg's contemporaries called this "the art of multiplyingbooks" and it was a major catalyst for the Renaissance, theScientific Revolution, and even the Protestant Reformation.

To read the complete article, see:
TheWriter's Almanac September 30, 2016(http://writersalmanac.org/episodes/20160930/)

To read the complete Wikipedia entry, see: Printing press(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press)