A replica of Gutenberg’s press, with a wooden screw and crank to drop the platen. It was designed and built by Alan May, a professor at the University of Reading in England, for a BBC documentary on the invention of printing called “The Machine that Made Us” with Stephen Fry. Image courtesy Martin Andrews.
A depiction of an early press from 1578, in a wood engraving by Jost Amman for playing cards from Nuremberg. The two inkballs are in use by the beater, at left, who is rubbing them together to spread the ink. The pressman is pulling the bar to drop the platen (with the addition of a comfortable footrest). Image courtesy Gutenberg Museum Mainz.
Jost Amman portrayed a number of early printing workshops, including this clearly labelled “Schefer,” for Peter Schoeffer, whose printers’ signet is partially reproduced on the “cheek” of the upright press. Note the bolting of the press to the ceiling, as well as the size and angle of the type-cases in the background. A font of 16th century type had far more characters than are used today. The Bible font contained 292 different characters, or ‘sorts’.
A modern drawing of the Gutenberg press, with the key parts labeled: screw, platen, bed and type form. The upright supports were known as ‘cheeks’.
Typefounding, in another Jost Amman depiction of the crafts required for printing from 1568. The small forge heats the molten metal in a depression on its surface; the type-founder uses a small ladle to pour it into the hand-casting mold. A number of similar molds appear to sit on the upper shelf. It is not known when precisely the hand-caster came into use. Most assume that something similar was used to cast the letters of the Gutenberg Bible, although recent research suggests a more rudimentary technique at first.
Generations of bibliographers have tried to puzzle out how Gutenberg cast his first types. Gustave Mori, a German bibliographer, thought he cast the letters in sand, in a jewelers’ casting box, yielding ‘branches’ of type as shown above. Reproduced from Kapr, Johann Gutenberg: the Man and his Invention, left, and Usher, A History of Mechanical Inventions, right.
A more advanced technology for casting type emerged by about 1470, using metal punches and molds. The tempered steel letter punches above were made in the early 18th century by William Caslon the Elder for Pica Roman. These would have been individually carved and hardened, with each character reversed. Each would then be driven into a bar of metal, usually copper, to form the matrix, below.
Examples of matrices: a 16th century Canon Roman capital B (left) and the original matrices for the Pica Roman face bought by Bishop Fell of Oxford in 1672 – the typeface used for “Gutenberg’s Apprentice”. Punch/matrix images reproduced from Carter, A View of Early Typography, Oxford University Press
The decisive, but undocumented, invention was the hand-casting mold for producing individual pieces of type. This enabled rapid casting of large quantities of letters. The matrix was placed inside the mold, a simplified version of which is shown above. Molten metal was then poured in, producing a piece of type as shown.
Diagram of a modern piece of metal type.
A partial reproduction of the font used to print the Gutenberg Bible, which ultimately totalled 292 different forms of alphabetic characters and ligatures.
Originally published by Gottfried Zedler, reproduced from Füssel, Gutenberg und seine Wirkung.
A case of type with the words ‘Gutenberg-Museum Mainz’ set in a large font of italic, resting upside-down and backward in a wooden type stick (modern ones are made of metal.) Image courtesy the Gutenberg-Museum.
Reproduction casting of the Gutenberg Bible typeface.