Page 16 - All About History 55 - 2017 UK

The WriTTen Word

Gutenberg’s typeface Typecases
The typeface taken from Medieval Individual pieces of metal type
script came to be known as were kept in boxes called cases.
‘Gothic’ or ‘blackletter.’ Though The smaller letters, which were
gradually superseded by many used most often, were kept in
easier-to-read typefaces taken from a lower case that was easier to
Roman sources, Gothic forms like reach. Capital letters, which were
this survived in Germany until used less frequently, were kept
after World War II. In Gutenberg’s in an upper case. Because of this
day, several letters had various old storage convention, we still
different versions, depending on refer to small letters as ‘lowercase’
how they were used. and capital letters as ‘uppercase’.
GUTENBERG’S

WORKSHOP

MAINZ, GERMANY, 1454

In autumn 1454, a group of German craftsmen
did something totally new. Six men set type in Forging the future
frames, while 12 others worked at printing presses, As well as building the
positioning the typeset pages, laying on ink with printing press, former
goldsmith Gutenberg also
fat, soft leather ink-balls, positioning the paper,
invented the moveable type.
sliding the pages into position, winding down the This meant he couldn’t just
press. Once they were done, they had changed the go out and buy type piece,
world: they had printed the first pages of the Bible. he had to make them. This
involved heating the metal in
Before Johannes Gutenberg’s invention, books
a furnace, scooping it up with
were copied by scribes, letter by tedious letter, Punch-making
ladle and pouring it into the
over weeks or months, with errors galore. In 1450, hand mould. The punch cutter used a sharp
all of Europe’s books could have been held in steel tool to carve the shape of a
letter in reverse on the end of a
one building. Gutenberg’s printing press — using
shank of metal. He sliced away
movable type to imprint paper — multiplied the minute slivers of steel no more
speed of production several hundred-fold, error than 0.01 millimetres thick.
free. Within 50 years, there were books by the They could be as little as a tenth
million — an information revolution matched only of that, just one micron thick
(a thousandth of a millimetre, or
by the invention of the internet.
a twenty-five-thousandth of an
Gutenberg’s genius lay in putting together two inch), producing letters as fine as
unrelated techniques: medal-making and wine- in a modern laser printer.
pressing. Medals were ‘struck’ by hammering a
‘punch’ on to a round piece of metal. Grapes were
compressed by wooden plates powered by screws
and levers. It took Gutenberg 20 years to work out
how to combine the two and then refine many
other details, like how exactly to turn a medal-
punch into metal type, choose the right texture of
paper and make the right sort of ink.
Gutenberg’s aim was to help unify Christendom
by producing error-free prayer books and Bibles for
the Church — and possibly make a profit doing so.
Ironically, he achieved exactly the reverse. Some Enter the matrix
60 years later, the ability of ordinary people to Gutenberg borrowed a technique from coin making,
read the Bible without a priest sparked another where the carved steel punch would be hammered
on to a softer metal medal to create a ‘matrix’. This
revolution — the Reformation — that blew Christian
matrix was then placed inside the hand mould,
unity apart forever. Sadly, Gutenberg didn’t profit where the molten metal poured into it would fill the
much, either. He fell out with his financier, who punch’s imprint and would solidify as a type piece.
called in his loans. Gutenberg died in 1468, his
accomplishments largely unappreciated.

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