Primary Source Literacy at USC Libraries & Beyond

The Printing Press

As with manuscripts, printing requires four basic elements: a surface on which to print, type with which to print, and a press to transmit inked type to the surface. These three elements are discussed further below.

While manuscripts were primarily written on parchment or vellum, paper was most often the surface used for early printed books. Paper was made from discarded linen rags which were gathered up for paper mills. The rags were then torn into smaller segments, beaten into pulp in a watery slurry. A wire mesh frame was dipped into the slurry creating a wet sheet of paper. The paper was then dried flat between wool flannels. Excess water was pressed out of a stack of paper between wool flannels. Once dried, the paper can be used for printing.

Watch this video on paper production:


In printing, the written word is transmitted through type, which is individual pieces of metal, each representing a letter of the alphabet. Type is created using a mold of the letter. Melted metal alloy is poured into the mold, and the cooled type is ejected from the mold. The process is repeated until sufficient type for each letter has been created to print a page. Unused type could be melted down and re-used again as new type. Initially the style of the type followed the forms used in manuscripts.

Watch this video on the production of metallic type created by the Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz:


Type is then lined up on a composing stick from right to left in reverse of how the text will appear on the printed page. Lines of type are set onto a frame, and then tightened to hold the type in place. Slugs, or metal spacers, are used to separate words from each other.

Watch this video on manual type-setting created by the Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz:


Presses (such as wine and paper press) existed before the development of the printing press, and early printing presses resemble such presses. The addition of a sliding carriage allowed the printer to slide the type frame and sheet of paper under the press. Before paper is placed over the type, the type is inked up with black ink using two leather pads. Once in place, the press plate is lowered onto the paper by pulling tightly on a horizontal handle, and then released. The carriage is then slid back to remove the paper from the laid up type.

Watch this video about the print workshop in the 15th century created by Cambridge University Library:

For the printing press, a new type of ink had to be developed as the existing inks described in the section on manuscript production created blurs when adhering the ink to printing surfaces. This new ink was an indelible, oil-based dye made with lamp-black, varnish and egg white. 

Watch this video about ink production in the 18th century:

The printed books produced between 1450-1500 are called incunables or in Latin incunabula. The Latin singular form incunabulum means swaddling cloths or cradle. Incunables thus are books in their early or newborn stages. A well-known example for an incunable is the Nuremberg Chronicle, or Liber Chronicarum, compiled by Hartmann Schedel and printed by Anton Koberger in Nuremberg, Germany in 1493. Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff contributed the woodcuts illustrating the book throughout. USC Libraries Special Collections is lucky to have two copies of the book, printed in Latin. German-language editions exist, too, but were printed in a smaller number than the Latin-language editions.

In the video below, Professor Lindsay O’Neill from USC’s Department of History looks at how early printed books were personalized, by comparing two copies of the Liber Chronicarum (known as the Nuremberg Chronicle, printed in 1493)


Header Image: Detail from the Nuremberg Chronicle, or Liber Chronicarum. 1493. USC Libraries D17.S34 1493b

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