The first books printed in Europe were block books, with each page cut from a single block of wood. Occasionally these books were produced in two colors. Because the process of cutting letters into the wood was quite laborious, such books often had only a few pages. In the mid-15th century, the Mainz goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1394/99-1468) discovered a method for making punches and casting type for letters that allowed him to print a book (the Gutenberg Bible) with movable type. The first such letters were in gothic script, copying the gothic style of lettering in manuscripts.
Two innovations of Renaissance publishing were the more readable italic script, modeled on humanis-
Handbook to life in Renaissance Europe
Tic cursive hands, and pocket editions, both developed by the Venetian printer and publisher Aldus Manutius (c. 1450-1515). Trained as a humanistic Greek scholar, he first offered Greek texts in large-format folio volumes, at expensive prices. Copies were still in stock a decade later. He then decided to market inexpensive textbooks of classical authors. Although the Aldine press was shut down twice by warfare (in 1506 and again in 1510-15), Aldus (as he is usually called) eventually produced books that most scholars could afford. Fluctuations in the profits of his business exemplify the experimental nature of publishing as a commercial enterprise during the first century of its existence. Other publishing houses, desiring a wider market, issued books in the vernacular languages, which, in turn, encouraged more works to be written in those tongues. During the 16th century, secular publications such as school texts, geographies, and literature were marketed along with the Bibles and devotional works that had become popular during the early decades of book publishing in Europe.
World History
