PRINTING is the art of producing impressions from characters or figures, on paper or any other substance. There are several distinct branches of this important art—as the printing of books with movable types, the printing of engraved copper and steel plates (see ENGRAVING), and the taking of impressions from stone, called lithography (q.v.). We have now to describe the art of priutiug books or sheets with movable types, gener ally called letter-press printing, and which may undoubtedly be esteemed the greatest of all human inventions.
The art of printing is of comparatively modern origin, only 400 years having elapsed since the first book was issued from the press; yet we have proofs that the principles upon which it was ultimately developed existed among the ancient Assyrian nations. Entire and undecayed bricks of the famed city and tower of Babylon have been found stamped with various symbolical figures and hieroglyphic characters. In this, however, as in every similar relic of antiquity, the object which stamped the figures was in one block or piece, and therefore could be employed only for one distinct subject. This, though a kind of printing, was totally useless for the propagation of literature, ou account both of its expensiveness and tediousness. The Chinese are the only existing people who still pursue this rude mode of printing- by stamping paper with blocks of wood. The work which they intend to be printed is, in the first place, carefully written upon sheets of thin transparent paper; each of the sheets is glued, with the face downward, upon a thin tablet-of hard wood; 'and the engraver then, with proper instruments, cuts" away the wood in parts on which noThing is traced; thus leaving the .transcribed , characters in relief, and ready fa printing. In this way, as many tablets are necessary as there are written pages. NO press is used; but when the ink is laid on, and the paper carefully placed above it, a brush is passed ofenvith the proper degree of pressure. A similar kind of printing by blocks, for the production of playing-cards and rude pictures of scriptural subjects, was in use in Europe toward the end of the 14th century. But in
all this there was little merit. The great discovery was that of forming every letter or character of the alphabet separately, so as to be capable of rearrangment, and forming in succession the pages of a work, thereby avoiding the interminable labor of cutting new blocks of types for every page. The credit of discovering this simple yet marvelous art is contested by the Dutch in favor of Laurence Coster (q.v.), between 1420 and 1426; and by the Germans, on behalf of Johann Gilnsfleisch of the Gutenberg (q.v.) family, about 1438. In all probability, the discovery was made almost simultaneously—such a theory being consistent with the general social progress at the period, and the secrecy which both inventors at first maintained respecting their art. The types first employed were of wood; but soon the practice of casting them in metal was introduced. See TYPES. The earliest of these metal types resembled the black letter in use by transcribers, and one great aim of the first printers was to produce books which should closely resemble the works in manuscript hitherto in use. Between 1450 and 1455 Gutenberg succeeded in printing a Bible, copies of which are now exceedingly rare and valuable. It is in quarto size, double columns, the initial letters of the chapters being executed with the pen, in colors. Besides this Bible, some other specimens of the work of Gutenberg, the produce of his press at Mayence, have been discovered. The Dutch at Haarlem pre serve and show with reverential. care similar specimens of early printing by Coster. Mayence, Strasburg, and Haarlem were indisputably the places where printing was exe cuted before the art•was extended to Rome,Venice, Florence, Milan, Parits, Tours, and other continental cities. Previous to 1471 it had reached these and various other places; and about the same year•Caxton (q.v.) introduced the art into England by setting up a press in Westminster abbey.