From Cave Paintings to the Internet An Annotated Interactive Timeline on the History of Information and Media 1450 to 1500 Timeline

Printed newsletters begin circulating in Europe.

"The Göttingen Model Book dates from the mid-15th century and originally belonged to a monastery. The manuscript arrived in Goettingen in 1770 with the bequest of the library of Johann Friedrich Armand von Uffenbach.

"It is a painting book for the drawing of leaves, initials and patterned backgrounds in different color combinations; even the composition of the colors is described in detail. The book decorations described in this manuscript can be found in the earliest period of printing in several Gutenberg Bibles, including the Göttingen copy of the B42."

Johann Gutenberg, working in Mainz, Germany, prints Indulgences using moveable type. These are the earliest dated documents printed by this method in Europe. The copy in the British Library is dated 1455. Though no Indulgences have survived with a date as early as 1452, it is possible that Gutenberg is already printing them at this early date.

The proceeds from the sale of the Indulgences are intended to assist in the defense of Byzantium against the Turks. After the Turks conquer Constantinople in 1453, Indulgences will be sold in order to finance a crusade against the Turks. It is also possible that Gutenberg issues an edition of Aelius Donatus’ Ars minor, a Latin grammar, at this time, but no complete copy has survived.

The so-called “Giant Bible of Mainz,” one of the most magnificent Middle-Rhenish manuscript books of the fifteenth century, is written out on parchment in gothic letters on leaves measuring 570 and 400mm. The identified scribe dates his work in various places in the manuscript. The manuscript is preserved in the Lessing Rosenwald Collection at the Library of Congress. The similarity in format and calligraphic style between this manuscript and the typography of the Gutenberg Bible issued just two years later is striking, suggesting that this manuscript might be the model for the typography Gutenberg uses in his 42-line Bible. There is also a striking similarity between the illumination of this manuscript and the illumination of the William H. Scheide copy of the Gutenberg Bible at Princeton University Library. In an addition both styles of illumination bear a strong relationship to the style of certain engraved designs by the Master of the Playing Cards. In Gutenberg and the Master of the Playing Cards (1966) Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt suggests that the illuminators of these manuscripts and the Master of the Playing Cards may have used a common model book which is now lost.

Using European artillery experts and European artillery, the Ottoman Turks break Constantinople’s wall, and capture the city, ending the reign of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and Constantinople’s roll as the capitol of the Byzantine Empire--an empire which had lasted for one thousand years.

As a result of the Fall of Constantinople, numerous Byzantine Greek scholars travel westward to Europe, bringing with them Greek manuscripts of the highest cultural value -- source material for Renaissance study of classical texts.

Johann Gutenberg has printed at least part of the 42-line bible by this date.

It has been stated that printing by moveable type is the first major invention in Europe associated with the name of an individual inventor, though ironically no documents have survived proving that Gutenberg actually invented the process.

The earliest document with a fixed date printed by moveable type is a 31-line Letter of Indulgence issued at Erfurt on October 22. The year 1454 is printed; the month and year is filled in by hand. This Indulgence is probably printed by Gutenberg.

The only 15th century book printed from wood-blocks in France, Les Neuf Preux, is thought to be printed about this date.

Gutenberg, working with Fust and Peter Schöffer, completes printing the 42-line bible, the first book printed in Europe from moveable type.

They print a few copies of the 42-line bible on vellum so that when illuminated those will more closely resemble deluxe medieval manuscripts.

To accomplish this monumental task Gutenberg, previously a goldsmith, has invented a special kind of printing ink, a method of creating punches and casting type, and a special kind of press derived from the wine press. Gutenberg's complex set of integrated technologies has been called the first invention in Europe that has been attributed to a single individual. Printing books is also the first process of mass production--the process that will, centuries later, become the model for the Industrial Revolution.

Enea Silvio Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II, reports that in Frankfurt, the year before, "a marvelous man" had been promoting the sale of a printed bible. Piccolomini states that he saw parts of it and it had such clear, large lettering that one could read it without glasses. He also notes that every copy had been sold.

Johann Fust, a goldsmith and lawyer, files a lawsuit against Gutenberg to recover money that he had advanced to Gutenberg beginning in 1450. The total claim is 2026 gulden with interest. As a result of the lawsuit Fust gains possession of Gutenberg’s press and equipment.

The “Bloodletting Calendar” for 1457 becomes the first known medical or scientific work to be printed. Popular during the Middle Ages, this form of calendar gives the lucky and unlucky days on which to perform the medical practice of bloodletting. It survives in only one copy in the Bibliotheque Nationale de France.

Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer, a scribe who moved to the new technology of printing, publish the Psalterium Latinum at Mainz. This magnificent book printed on vellum is the first printed book to give both the name of the printer and the date of printing. It has initial letters printed in red, light purple, and blue. It is also the first printed book to include music-- two lines of music printed with a 4-line staff.

The colophon of the Mainz Psalter boasts of the new technology involved in its production. The colophon reads in translation, “The present copy of the Psalms, adorned with beauty of capital letters, and sufficiently marked out with rubrics, has been thus fashioned by an ingenious invention of printing and stamping without any driving of the pen. . . .”

Johann Mentelin, formerly a scribe and illuminator, decides to adopt the new technology, and sets up a printing press at Strasbourg. This is the second printing press known to have been established after the Gutenberg/Fust and Schoffer press.

The Mentelin Bible, printed by Johann Mentelin by 1460, is the second edition of the Bible and first book printed in Strasbourg. Twenty-eight copies survive, all on paper. There is a copy in the Scheide Library at Princeton. "Until Scheide's purchase in 2001, no copy had been sold for more than 75 years."

The first not entirely religious printed book is issued in Mainz. It is an encyclopedic work by the 13th century Dominican of Genoa, Johannes Balbus, and entitled the Summa grammaticalis quae vocatur Catholicon. The colophon of this book reads in translation: "This book was produced not with a reed, stylus, or quill, but by the admirable design, proportion, and adjustment of punches and matrices."

The means by which this book was printed continues to be the subject of research. "As early as 1905 Gottfried Zedler recognized that the Catholicon edition dated Mainz 1460 exists in three impressions printed from a single setting of type but associated with three presses (with different pinhole patterns) and printed on three distinct paper stocks. In 1982 Paul Needham presented evidence that the three issues were printed at three different times, according to the datable use of their paper stocks: copies on Bull's Head paper (with which are classed the vellum copies) in 1460, copies on Galliziani paper ca. 1469, and copies on Crown and Tower papers ca. 1472. Moreover, Needham argued that the three impressions were produced, not from standing type, but from two-line 'slugs' cast from the type and capable of being reassembled for subsequent impressions. According to this theory, the first impression of the Catholicon was produced by Gutenberg himself in 1460; the 'slugs' then passed into the possession of Konrad Humery with Gutenberg's other typographic material after the latter's death in 1468 and were re-used by Humery, probably with the help of Peter Schoeffer, ca. 1469. In this view, which has aroused prolonged controversy among incunabulists, the 1460 Catholicon represents not only Gutenberg's last production but also his final achievement, the invention of an early form of stereotyping" (The Nakles Collection of Incunabula, Christie's New York, 17 April 2000, Lot 2).

A 36-line Bible printed at Bamberg in 1461 or earlier is thought to be the third printed edition of the Bible. There is a copy in the Scheide Library at Princeton. "Only 14 copies survive, all on paper. Scheide's copy once belonged to the Benedictines of Würzburg, whose convent was dissolved in 1803, and to Earl Spencer. When Scheide bought it at an auction in Nov. 1991, no copy had been on the market for 200 years."

Albrecht Pfister of Bamberg, who is characterized as "a church dignitary and amateur printer" issues a book of fables, Der Edelstein by Ulrich Boner, a Domincan monk. Containing 101 woodcuts, this is also the first book printed in German, and the first dated book with woodcut illustrations. "The woodcuts were impressed by hand in blanks left for the purpose in the printed text--much as though they had been rubber stamps." (Ivins, Prints and Visual Communication [1969] xi). Only one copy of the original printing survived. It is preserved in the Herzog August Bibliothek at Wolfenbuttel. A second edition issued about 1464 contains 103 woodcuts.

Fust and Schoffer issue the first dated bible at Mainz. It contains the first printer's mark ever used--the two shields of Fust and Schoffer, indicating their partnership.

A feud between two Archbishop Diether von Isenburg, who was supported by the citizens, and Adolf II von Nassau, who had been named bishop for Mainz by the Pope, causes Archbishop Adolf II to raid the city of Mainz, plundering and killing 400 inhabitants. At a tribunal, those who survive lose all their property, which is then divided between those who promised to follow Adolf II. Those who will not promise to follow Adolf II (among them Johann Gutenberg) are driven out of the or thrown into prison. The new Archbishop denies Mainz its town rights and makes the city an archepiscopal capital. This debacle stops printing in Mainz for the next few years and contributes to the spread of printing. "It wiped out commerce there, and the consequent lack of money led printers, who were established in a kind of industrial group, to scatter widely. This accounts for the German names we find among the earliest printers in other countries throughout Europe." (Updike).

Peter Schoeffer issues the first publication with a regular printed title page with his edition of Pope Pius II's Bulla Cruciatae contra Turcos. The title page will not come into widespread use until near the end of the 15th century.

The first book printed in Italy, an edition of Cicero’s De Oratore, is issued from the press of the German printers Conrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz at the monastery of Subiaco. It is also the first book printed in Roman type. The edition has been estimated between 100 and 275 copies. 18 copies are extant today.

The earliest extant edition of the block-book, Biblia Pauperum, is assigned to this date on the basis of watermarks in the paper. Other block-books, Canticum canticorum and Ars Moriendi, are thought to date from this time or 1466.

Johann Mentelin of Strassburg issues the first edition of the Bible in German--the first edition in any modern language.

An anonymous scholar describes the value and difficulty of preparing as accurate a manuscript text for as possible for printing probably for the first time in any printed book in his preface to a corrected version of Augustine's De Arte Praedicandi: "Nevertheless I have thought it by all means worthwhile that I should first expend much labour over what would be to the common utility of the Church: that I may have this most useful little book- worthy of all esteem - correct, in order that, after correction this way, I would be able to communicate it more usefully to all those wishing to have it. Therefore, as God is my witness, I have taken great pains in the correction of it, in such a way that I have sought out diligently all the copies which I have been able to discover for this purpose in any of the libraries in the school of Heidelberg, in Speyer and in Worms, and finally also in Strassburg. And since in the course of this I have learned by experience that that particular book of Augustine is rare to come by even in the great and well stocked libraries, and even rarer can it be had for copying from any of those same libraries; and also, what is worse, that when it can be found in there it is more rarely corrected or emended; on that account I have been moved to work most carefully to this end; that, according to my exemplar- now corrected at least by as much care and labour as I am capable of- the said little book can be multipled in this state, and in such a way that i may become rapidly and easily known in a short time, for the use of many and to the common advantage of the Church. On account of which, since I judged that this could not be done more expeditiously by any other method or means, I have persuaded by every means that discreet gentleman Johann Mentelin, inhabitant of Strassburg, master of the art of typography, to the end that the might see fit to undertake the responsibily and toil of multiplying this little book by means of printing, having my copy before his eyes. . . ." (M.B. Parkes, Introduction to Peter Ganz (ed.) The Role of the Book in Medieval Culture, 1986, 15-16)

Sweynheym and Pannartz issue the first edition of St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei from their press at the monastery of Subiaco. The manuscript from which they based this text is preserved there in the monastery of St. Scholastica. "That the codex was used for the printing is clearly shown by the frequent editorial corrections, the inky fignerprints, and the scored marks in the margins to indicate the end of the text page. The texts of the printed pages correspond almost exactly to these marking." (Wilson, The Making of the Nuremberg Chronicle [1976] 34). This may be the earliest printed book for which the printer's manuscript remains extant.

Before July 20 of this year Adolph Ruysch of Strasbourg issues the first printed edition of De Sermonum Proprietate, seu de Universo, written by Hrabanus Maurus, Archbishop of Mainz in the first half of the ninth century. This is the first printed encyclopedia, and the first printed book to contain a chapter on medicine. That section may be the first significant printed text on a scientific subject.

The Venetian Senate grants the German printer Johannes de Spira a five-year monopoly on printing in the city. Under this protection he initiates printing in Venice, issuing an edition of Cicero's Epistolae ad Familiares in an edition of 100 copies. Later the same year he issues a second edition of 300 copies. He also publishes the first edition of Pliny's Historia Naturalis in an edition of 100 copies.

The printers Sweynhem and Pannartz issue an edition of the Opera of Virgil at Rome, and Johnann Mentelin issues another edition at Strassburgh.These are the first printed editions, but it is not known which edition is first. Virgil will be one of the most frequently printed authors in the 15th century with about 100 editions issued.

Though the names of the printers are not known, and the books are not dated, it is generally accepted that the six so-called "Rome incunabula" are the earliest books printed in Hebrew.

Early in this year or late in 1469 the printer Peter Schoeffer issues his first book list, probably the earliest surviving list of books issued by any printer. Only one copy has survived, in the Munich State Library.

Johann Mentelin of Strassburg issues the first printing of St. Augustine's Confessions. The edition is undated but is not later than 1470.

German printers, Kranz, Gering and Freiburger, set up the first press in Paris on the precincts of the Sorbonne. Between 1470 and 1473 they will print 23 Latin texts for students at the Sorbonne.

Paolo Bagellardo (d. 1494) has his treatise on pediatrics, De Infantium Aegritudinibus et Remediis, printed in Padua. This is the first medical treatise, and probably also the first scientific treatise, to make its original appearance in printed form rather than having prior circulation in manuscript.

Joannes Nicolai de Verona issues the first edition of Roberto Valturio's De re militari. Illustrated with full-page woodcuts, it is the first printed book on technology, in this case war machines.

Gunther Zainer of Augsburg, Germany, issues the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville. A medieval encyclopedia written in the seventh century, it contains a simple diagramatic world map in the so-called "T-O" style. This woodcut has been called the first map included in a printed book.

William Caxton issues the first book printed in English at Bruges, Belgium. It is his translation of The Recuyell of the Histories of Troy.

The so-called "Printer of Augustinus de Fide (Goiswin Gops?) issues the first printed edition of Richard de Bury's Philobiblon, a work on the love of books and book-collecting, written in 1343.

The earliest printed music, after the single line of music published in the 1457 Mainz Psalter, appears in the Missale Speciale Constantiense issued by an unknown printer in an unknown city or town in Germany, probably about 1473. Much scholarship has been devoted to trying to determine the correct printing date, the printer, and the printing location of this exceptionally rare publication. The only complete copy in the United States is preserved in the Pierpont Morgan Library.

According to the colophon, Werner Rolevinck, compiler of the Fasciculus Temporum, the earliest chronological world history to be printed, provided the Cologne printer Arnold ter Hoernen with a manuscript-layout for his use. In translation the colophon reads, "following the first exemplar which this venerable author himself wrote by hand completely."

This is some of the earliest evidence of the collaboration between author and printer in the design and production of printed books. A few contemporary manuscripts that have survived are similar to the complex typography and woodcuts of the printed edition, but none have been demonstrated to be the author's exemplar for the printer. (Wilson, The Making of the Nuremberg Chronicle [1976] 38-41).

Ptolemy's Cosmographia, translated into Latin by Jacobus Angeus, is published in Vicenza by Hermann Leichtenstein. The first edition contains no maps.

Peter Schoffer of Mainz issues the first edition of the Codex Justinianus. This is the first part of the Corpus Iuris Civilis (Body of Civil Law) originally issued from 529-534 by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I.

"Justinian's Corpus Juris Civilis was lost in the West, where it was scarcely needed in the primitive conditions that followed the collapse of Odoacer's sub-Roman kingdom. Historians disagree on the precise way it was recovered in Northern Italy about 1070: perhaps it was waiting unneeded and unnoticed in a library until the legal studies that were undertaken on behalf of papal authority that was central to the Gregorian Reform of Pope Gregory VII led to its accidental rediscovery. Aside from the Littera Florentina, a 6th-century codex of the Pandects that was jealously preserved at Pisa, since 1406 at Florence, there may have been other manuscript sources for the text that began to be taught at Bologna, by Pepo and then by Irnerius, whose technique was to read a passage aloud, which permitted his students to copy it, then to deliver an excursus explaining and illuminating Justinian's text, in the form of glosses. . Irmerius' pupils, the "Four Doctors" were among the first of the "Glossators" who established the curriculum of Roman law."

"The merchant classes of Italian communes required law with a concept of equity and which covered situations inherent in urban life better than the primitive Germanic oral traditions. The provenance of the Code appealed to scholars who saw in the Holy Roman Empire a revival of venerable precedents from the classical heritage. The new class of lawyers staffed the bureaucracies that were beginning to be required by the princes of Europe. The University of Bologna, where Justinian's Code was first taught, remained the dominant center for the study of law through theHigh Middle Ages.".

Abraham ben Garton prints the first dated book in Hebrew at Reggio di Calabria. It is a Commentary on the Pentateuch by Rabbi Salomon Rashi.

In Milan, Diogini da Paravicino (Dionysius Parvisinus) issues the first book printed entirely in Greek--the Greek grammar of Constantine Lascaris, Grammatica Graeca, sive compendium octo orationis partium. The font is thought to have been designed and produced by the Cretan, Demtrius Damilas, who will print the Opera of Homer in Greek in 1488-89.

Erhard Ratdolt issues the Kalendario of Johannes Muller (Regiomontantus). This is the first book in which the title and place, date, and printer's name appear on a separate title page--an innovation that will not come into common use until the early 16th century. This book and a Latin version that Ratdolt also issues in 1476 are also the first books to be dated with Arabic rather than Roman numerals. Prior to this date, and throughout the remainder of the 15th century, the title, place, and date of printing, as well as the printer's name is usually printed on the colophon leaf at the end of books in the manner of medieval manuscripts.

Having learned the printer's art in Venice, Guillaume LeRoy sets up a press in Lyons, France, at the expense of his financial backer, Bartholomieu Buyer. They locate the press in Buyer's house. There LeRoy publishes Jean de Vigne's French translation of Jacobus de Voragine's Legenda aurea. It is the first book printed in French. Guillaume LeRoy will become the first printer in Europe to specialize in printing books in the vernacular. Drees, The Late Medieval Age of Crisis and Renewal 1300-1500 (2001) 286.

William Caxton’s name is entered on the account role for having paid a year’s rent in advance for the premises in which he will set up his press at Westminster Abbey in London.

The first illustrated edition of Ptolemy's Cosmographia, containing 26 copperplate maps, is published in Bologna by Domincus de Lapis, but with the erroneous colophon date of 23 June 1462. For a long time this year was thought to have been a misprint for 1482, but manuscripts found in Bologna set the publication date in 1477. "It thus becomes the first book with engraved maps, and also the first book with the maps by a known artist, the plates having been engraved by Taddeo Crevilli of Ferrara." (Lone, Some Neteworthy Firsts in Europe during the Fifteenth Century [1930]) 41.

Caxton completes at Westminister the first dated book printed in England--The Dictes or Sayinges of the Philosophers.

The anonymous Arte dell’Abbaco . . . (Treviso, 1478), on the operation of the abacus, is the first dated book on arithmetic. It is possible that some undated pamphlets on Algorithmus may predate this work.

While under the patronage of the Medici, Leonardo va Vinci designs a programmable, mechanical automaton. Leonardo's drawing for this invention will not be understood until 1975 when Leonardo scholar Carlo Pedretti recognizes that Leonardo's so-called automobile in the Codex Atlanticus is an automaton. The automaton  features front wheel drive and rack and pinion control.

Printing has spread throughout the continent of Europe and England. Up to this date a typical print run of a book is between 100 and 300 copies.

Erhard Ratdolt of Venice issues the first printed edition of Euclid's Elements-- Praeclarissimus liber elementorum Euclidis in artem geometriae. The text is based upon a translation from Arabic to Latin presumably made by Abelard of Bath in the 12th century, edited and annotated by Campanus of Novara.
It is the first substantial book to contain geometrical figures, of which it includes over 400. Ratdolt prints a dedication copy to the Doge of Venice using gold ink--the only known example of this practice in the 15th century. Based on the unusually large number of surviving copies, the first edition of Euclid was issued in an edition considerably larger than 300 copies. Characterized as the most famous textbook in history, Euclid will be one of the most widely printed texts for the next 500 years.

The Alphonsine Tables, a compilation of astronomical data tabulating the positions and movements of the planets, are printed in Venice. They are a revision and improvement of the Ptolemaic tables, compiled at Toledo, Spain, about 1252 by about 50 astronomers assembled for the purpose by King Alfonso X of Castile. They are among the earliest printed mathematical tables, the work of human computers.

Erhardt Ratdolt's edition of Eusebius of Caesarea's Chronicon issued at this time records an entry for the year 1457added by the editor crediting Johann Gutenberg "to whom literature will always be indebted" with the invention of "an ingenious way of printing"books." This is one of the earliest acknowledgements in print of Gutenberg's invention.

By decree of Sultan Bajazet II Turks are prohibited from operating a printing press.

An unidentified printer, known as the "Schoolmaster Printer," issues The Boke of Saint Albans, from this town in England. This work on hawking, hunting, and heraldry is the earliest book printed in England to include color printing. It is also the first English book on heraldry and sports and among the earliest, if not the earliest printed book written by a woman, whose name is variously given as Juliana Berners. Little is known about the authoress; some of the most basic information about her is given in the second edition of this work issued by Wynkyn de Worde from his press at Westminister in 1496. She is said to have been prioress of Sopwell nunnery near St Albans, and daughter of Sir James Berners, who was beheaded in 1388.

Erhard Ratdolt issues what is thought to be the earliest known type-specimen from his press in Venice. Only one copy exists in the Bavarian State Library at Munich.

In response to the rapid spread of print technology, Pope Innocent VIII issues the first Papal Bull concerned with printing: Bulla S.D.N. Innocentii contra Impressores librorum reprobatorum. From this date the Holy Inquisition institutes prepublication censorship.

At Soncino Italy, Joshua Solomon Soncino produces the first printed Hebrew Bible.

The first printed edition of the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer appears in Florence. It is printed by the Cretan Demetrius Damilas for the brothers Nerlii in the original Greek. This is the first edition of any major Greek work it is original language.

Rabbi Eliezer Toledano establishes the first press at Lisbon, Portugal, to print books in Hebrew. In July of this year he issues Moses ben Nahman's Commentary on the Pentateuch (Persusch ha-Tora). This is the second book printed in Lisbon.

Johannes Trithemius, in his treatise In Praise of Scribes, questions the durability of media used in long term information storage when he compares the durability of information written on traditional vellum with that written or printed on the newer medium of paper.

The Spanish Army defeats Muslim forces in Granada, the last remaining territory in Spain under Muslim control, thus restoring the whole of Spain to Christian rule.

"In the same month in which their Majesties [Ferdinand and Isabella] issued the edict that all Jews should be driven out of the kingdom and its territories, in the same month they gave me the order to undertake with sufficient men my expedition of discovery to the Indies." So begins Christopher Columbus' diary. The expulsion that Columbus refers to was so cataclysmic an event that ever since, the date 1492 has been almost as important in Jewish history as in American history. On July 30 of that year, the entire Jewish community, some 200,000 people, were expelled from Spain."

In a 4-page pamphlet, Epistola de Insulis nuper inventis published in Barcelona, Christopher Columbus describes the discovery of the New World.

According to J. Alden (ed) European Americana: A Chronological Guide to Works Printed in Europe Relating to the Americas, I, 1980, 1-2, there were twenty printed works, published during 1493 that mentioned the New World. These included nine or ten different editions of Columbus' Epistola.

Anton Koberger of Nuremberg publishes the Liber Chronicarum written by the physician Hartmann Schedel. This large-folio compendium of history, geography and natural wonders contains 1,809 illustrations from 645 woodcuts on just over 600 pages. Certain woodcuts are reproduced more than once, sometimes for the depiction of different people or cities. Koberger also issues a German translation the same year. Though the information in this work is rapidly superceded, the Nuremberg Chronicle remains famous for its extraordinary graphic design, its printing, its woodcuts and descriptions of cities. One of the woodcuts depicts the paper mill established in Nuremberg by Ulman Stromer in 1390.

Probably because of its imposing physical characteristics, an exceptionally high percentage of the original editions of this work will be preserved in both private and institutional libraries. Remarkably the original manuscript exemplars showing the exact arrangement of the text and illustrations for both the Latin and German editions have been preserved, as well has other original documents pertaining to the publication of these works. The Exemplar for the Latin edition is at the Stadbibliothek Nurnberg. The Exemplar for the German edition is also preserved in the Nuremberg City Library. In 1976 Adrian Wilson, a book designer and historian of book design, issued a remarkable book in which he showed the relationship between these manuscript exemplars and the printed editions: The Making of the Nuremberg Chronicle (1976).

Only one year after their explusion from Spain, David and Samuel ibn Nahmias establish the first Hebrew printing press in Constantinople. There they print Jacob ben Asher's fourteenth century Arbaah Turim (Four Orders of the Code of Law) completed on 4 Tevet 5254 (13 December 1493). This is the first book ever printed in the Ottoman Empire, not only in Hebrew but in any language. As Jews, the brothers are allowed to practice the printing trade which is forbidden to Muslims. This will be the only book that they issue in Hebrew at Constantinople during the 15th century.

Sebastian Brant publishes Das Narrenschiff (The Ship of Fools). Some of the woodcuts are by the young Albrecht Durer. Translated into all European languages, this satire becomes a great best-seller. It includes a characterization and woodcut illustration of the "book fool" who enjoys owning many books but has read few of them. That book-collecting has become a topic for satire by this time is a reflection of the proliferation of books since the invention of printing by moveable type.

Responding to the challenges of organizing the rapidly growing body of information caused by the development of printing, Trithemius writes and has printed the earliest subject bibliography, Liber de Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis (A Book on Ecclesiastical Writings). It is the first bibliography compiled as a practical reference work.

A product for the royal court of France, the "Hours of Henry VIII" iluminated by Jean Poyet, preserved in the Pierpont Morgan Library, is one of the most splendid Books of Hours from this period. This magnificently illustrated lay book of daily devotions and prayers contains fifty-five exquisitely hand-painted images.

Even as the reach of printing continues to expand, the practice of commissioning luxury manuscript books of hours by wealthy patrons continues well through the sixteenth century. From the seventeenth century onward it will noticably decline. The production of these luxury manuscripts, in which the emphasis is on the illustrations, continues to provide employment for a declining number of scribes and illuminators, some of whom find employment in the printing trades or as the illustrators of printed books. The work of manuscript illuminators can also be seen in certain hand-colored deluxe copies of illustrated printed books of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.