Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Printing Press, Humanism, the Renaissance, and the Protestant Reformation

Gutenberg made the choice concerning using a square lettering style which was commonly used by different German scribes during his present day. Gutenberg had labored for many years before actually printing the first typographic book known as the forty two line Bible. Each individiual character in the given font had to be engraved into the top of a steel bar inorder to make a punch. Then, the punch would be driven into a type of soft copper or brass which resulted in a negative impression of the letterform being constructed. Although there are numerous positives being Gutenbergs invention, his main key that helped his invention become so useful to so many people was the type of mold used for casting different individual letters. Within this, each character had to be absolutely parallel and every direction along with having the exact same heigth. He also had a two part type mold which was used for narrow and wide characters and permitted large volumes of type to be presented. Gutenburgs press was used for four hundred years while having only moderate improvements. Because of his knowledge and creativity to develop such a machine, the speed of printing along with the consistent quality of printing greatly increased.
After Gutenburgs invention, Humanism started to progress. Different individuals started doing things on their own while becoming more and more focused and independelty studying their religous views and education views. During this time, different individuals no longer felt the need to highly rely on the church at all times and began thinking and doing things resulting from their own thought. People didnt feel like they had to be all focused in on church and started realizing that they were there own individuals and they are allowed to think which resulted in them doing whatever they thought was what needed to be done. Since the printing press developed which then caused the developement of Humanism to expand, the Renaissance later took a stand. Renaissance is also referred to as a time of "revival" or "rebirth." This time period is often used to mark the transition from medieval to the today modern world. During this time period, floral decoration became extremely lovable by many people. Different wildflowers and vines were applied to furniture. Because it was a time for rebirth, many different artists began creating different pieces of whatever it was they desired at the time which might have been a sign of reliving or starting over in my eyes. At this time, art began to be viewed as being more realisticly and many different sciences appeared. The next step during the Renaissance was to eventually print everything on press. As we all know, before the printing press became known, the bible wasnt translated into different languages which caused it not to accomadate many people. However, during the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther helped tremendously by changing the Bible into German that way the majority of people would be able to read it and use it at their own calling. Luther not only made it possible for many individuals to actually be able to read the bible, but also at the same time he was spreading the word of Christianity. After talking about the invention of the printing press, how humanism played a role, the Renaissance, and the Protestant Reformation all play a huge key factor into the development of the printing press.
Today, I feel truely thankful for the printing press and everyone else that played such a huge role which not only influenced me as a person but influenced the way life would be for me and for my future children.

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