Gutenberg & the European invention of printing

Ready to take your next journey of Discovery? The Renaissance: Journeys of Discovery at BRLSI is a yearlong programme of talks and events exploring the many joys, discoveries and something of the broader cultural legacy of a movement still making waves in the 21^st century.  Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Martin Luther, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Machiavelli, Hieronymus Bosch, if you love culture then you’ll love our new talks series!

But what of printing, and the Northern Renaissance? Gutenberg’s invention was the starting point for a media revolution that was radically to change the history of Europe and then the world.

This talk examines what Gutenberg actually invented and why it could create such a big change. It looks at the books Gutenberg produced and uses them to tell the story of the technical and economic problems that had to be solved. An astonishing wealth of archival material, often of a surprising nature, tells us something about Gutenberg; who he was, what motivated him and what it was he himself was hoping to achieve. Finally the talk will outline how different perceptions of the importance of printing have been used throughout history, to express attitudes towards contemporary social and political conditions.

Dr Kristian Jensen was Head of Collections and Curation at the British Library until 2021. In his first job at the British Library he was responsible for incunabula, books printed in the fifteenth century. He led the then pioneering digitisation of the BL’s Gutenberg Bibles jointly with Keio University, Tokyo. He has published widely on the history of books and on the history of collecting. After his retirement he has chaired the Consortium of European Research Libraries and has provided consultancy on the management of sensitive cultural property.

To learn more about the Renaissance and our exciting year long programme, don’t forget to follow our Renaissance: Journeys of Discovery webpage: https://www.brlsi.org/renaissance/

Image: From the British Library Collection:  C.9.d.3,4 (= IC.55), fol. 1 recto.