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The global spread of printing was a process which began with the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg (Germany, c. 1450) and ended with the adoption of printing in all major world regions by the 19th century. Genealogically, Gutenberg's printing press is the archetype of all modern movable type printing. Today, practically all print works can be traced back to a single source, Gutenberg's press. Germany Gutenberg's first major print work was the 42-line bible in Latin (B42), printed probably between 1452 and 1454 in the German city of Mainz. After Gutenberg lost a lawsuit against his investor Johann Fust, Peter Schöffer was put by Fust in charge of Gutenberg's print shop, whereupon Gutenberg established a new print shop with the financial backing of another money lender. With Gutenberg's monopoly soon shattered, and the secrecy of the new technology compromised, printing spread throughout Germany and beyond, diffused first by emigrating German printers, but soon also by foreign apprentices. Europe In rapid succession, printing presses were set up in middle and western Europe. Major towns, in particular, functioned as centers of diffusion (Köln 1466, Rome 1467, Venice 1469, Paris 1470, London 1477). In 1481, barely 30 years after the publication of the B42, the small Netherlands already featured printing shops in 21 cities and towns, Italy even 40 (1480) and Germany a similar number. According to one estimate, "by 1500, 220 printing presses were in operation throughout Western Europe and had produced 8 million books." Germany and Italy were considered the two main centres of printing in terms of quantity and quality. Rest of the world The near-simultaneous discovery of sea routes to the West (Christopher Columbus, 1492) and East (Vasco da Gama, 1498) and the subsequent establishment of trade links greatly facilitated the global spread of Gutenberg-style printing. Traders, colonists, but, perhaps most, missionaries exported printing presses to the new European oversea domains, setting up new print shops and distributing printing material. In America, the first extra-European print shop was founded in Mexico-City in 1544 (1539?), and soon after Jesuits started operating the first printing press on Asian soil (Goa, 1556). For a long time, however, movable type printing rather remained the business of Europeans, working from within the confines of their colonies. Ignorance and religious reasons seemed to be among the reasons for the slow adoption of the printing press by indigenous peoples. Thus, printing remained prohibited in the Ottoman empire between 1483 and 1727, initially even on death penalty. And in India, reports are that Jesuits "presented a polyglot Bible to the Emperor Akbar in 1580 but did not succeed in arousing much curiosity." But also practical reasons seem to have played a role. The English East India Company, for example, brought a printer to Surat in 1675, but was not able to cast type in Indian scripts, so the venture failed. A notable exception was the enthusiastic adoption by the Cherokee chieftain See-quah-yah who published the newspaper 'Cherokee Phoenix' in his native language (and English), after having invented an alphabet of 85 letters for that purpose. In the 19th century, the arrival of the Gutenberg-style press - essentially unchanged from the time of its invention - on the shores of Tahiti (1818), Hawaii (1821) and other Pacific islands marked the end of a global diffusion process which had begun almost 400 years earlier. At the same time, the 'old style' press (as the Gutenberg model came to be termed in the 19th century), was already in the process of being displaced by industrial machines like the steam powered press (1812) and the rotary press (1833) - both of which are to be considered further developments of the Gutenberg press. Spread of printing by location The following represents a selection: Germany Italy In 1480, printing was already done in 40 Italian cities. Switzerland France Apart from the cities above, there was a small number of lesser towns which set up printing presses. The Netherlands In 1481, printing was already done in 21 towns and cities. Hungary Belgium Spain England Denmark Sweden Portugal Poland Scotland Iceland Norway Ireland Russia Latvia Georgia Turkey Sultan Bayezid II. prohibited printing in the Ottoman empire in 1483 on death penalty, but underground printing was done by wandering Jews (1515 Saloniki, 1554 Adrianople, 1552 Belgrade, 1658 Smyrna). In 1727, Sultan Achmed III. gave his permission for the set-up of the first legal print shop. Greece Greenland Latin America North America Africa South Asia South East Asia Inner Asia Australia & Oceania See also | |||||||
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