The Printing Revolution

The phenomenon of the Printing Revolution can be approached from a quantitative perspective which has its focus on the printing output and the spread of the related technology. It can also be analysed in terms of how the wide circulation of information and ideas acted as an "agent of change" (Eisenstein) in Europe and global society in general.

Mass production and spread of printed books

The invention of mechanical movable type printing led to a veritable explosion of printing activities in Europe within the span of only a few decades. From a single print shop in Mainz, Germany, printing had spread to no less than 236 cities in twelve European countries by the end of the 15th century. As early as 1480, there were printers active in 110 different places in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, England, Bohemia and Poland. From that time on, it is assumed that "the printed book was in universal use in Europe".

In Italy, a center of early printing, print shops had been established in 77 cities and towns by 1500. At the end of the following century, 151 locations in Italy had seen at one time printing activities, with a total of nearly three thousand printers known to be active. Despite this proliferation, printing centres soon emerged; thus, one third of the Italian printers published in Venice.

By 1500, the printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than twenty million volumes. In the following century, their output rose tenfold to an estimated 150 to 200 million copies.

European printing presses of around 1600 were capable of producing 3,600 impressions per workday. By comparison, Far Eastern printing, which did not know presses and was solely done by manually rubbing the back of the paper to the page, did not exceed an output of forty pages per day.

The vast printing capacities meant that individual authors could now become true bestsellers: Of Erasmus's work, at least 750,000 copies were sold during his lifetime alone (1469−1536). In the early days of the Reformation, the revolutionary potential of bulk printing took princes and papacy alike by surprise: Just in the short period from 1518 to 1524, the publication of books in Germany alone skyrocketed sevenfold; between 1518 and 1520, Luther's tracts were distributed in 300,000 printed copies.

The rapidness of typographical text production, as well as the sharp fall in unit costs, led to the issuing of the first newspapers (see Relation) which opened up an entire new field for conveying up-to-date information to the public.

A lasting legacy are the prized incunable, surviving pre-16th century print works which are collected by many of the most prestigious libraries in Europe and North America.