Printer’s Marks Part 10

The History of Printing

“The invention of the printing press revolutionized communication and book production, leading to the spread of knowledge. Printing was rapidly spread from Germany by emigrating German printers, but also by foreign apprentices returning home. A printing press was built in Venice in 1469, and by 1500 the city had 417 printers. In 1470 Johann Heynlin set up a printing press in Paris. In 1473 Kasper Straube published the Almanach cracoviense ad annum 1474 in Kraków. Dirk Martens set up a printing press in Aalst (Flanders) in 1473. He printed a book about the two lovers of Enea Piccolomini who became Pope Pius II. In 1476 a printing press was set up in England by William Caxton. The Italian Juan Pablos set up an imported press in Mexico City in 1539. The first printing press in Southeast Asia was set up in the Philippines by the Spanish in 1593. The Rev. Jose Glover intended to bring the first printing press to England’s American colonies in 1638, but died on the voyage, so his widow, Elizabeth Harris Glover, established the printing house, which was run by Stephen Day and became The Cambridge Press. The Gutenberg press was much more efficient than manual copying. It remained largely unchanged in the eras of John Baskerville and Giambattista Bodoni, over 300 years later. By 1800, Lord Stanhope had constructed a press completely from cast iron, reducing the force required by 90% while doubling the size of the printed area. While Stanhope’s “mechanical theory” had improved the efficiency of the press, it was only capable of 250 sheets per hour. German printer Friedrich Koenig was the first to design a non-manpowered machine—using steam. He moved to London in 1804, and met Thomas Bensley; he secured financial support for his project in 1807. With a patent in 1810, Koenig designed a steam press “much like a hand press connected to a steam engine.” The first production trial of this model occurred in April 1811.”

from The History of Printing on Wikipedia