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From Gutenberg to the Internet Timeline An Annotated Chronology of the History of Information from about 30,000 B.C.E. to the present, by Jeremy M. Norman. |
| 1920194019501960 |
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1500 |
By this date printing presses are established in more than 250 cities in Europe. The average print run of a book is between 400-500 copies, with as many as 1000 copies of some books being printed. By this date it is estimated that printers issued from 27,000 to 35,000 different printed works of all kinds, including pamphlets and broadsides as well as books, with a total printed output of somewhere around 15 to 20 million copies. |
| Fewer than 150 editions of Hebrew incunabula (15th century books) were produced-- less than half a percent of the total production of printed books during the 15th century. By the end of the 20th century only about 2000 copies of all these editions combined will be preserved in institutional libraries. They were printed in Italy, Spain and Portugal, and one edition was published in the Ottoman Empire. Many of these editions are very rare, with one-third of them known in only one, two or three copies. | |
| Circa 1500 | Aldus Manutius describes on a single printed sheet preserved in the Vatican Library (Stamp. Barb. AAAIV 13, inside front cover) Rules of the Modern Academy. "He calls for those concerned with preparing and correcting editions of the Greek classics in his shop in Venice (many of whom were emigres from Greece or Crete) to speak only classical Greek. Those who fail to do so must pay fines, and when these have sufficiently accumulated, they are to be used to pay for a 'symposium'--a lavish common meal (the rule states that it must be better than the food given printers, which was legendarily meager.) The Renaissance idea of the publishing house as a center of learning emerges vividly." (Grafton, The Vatican and its Library IN: Rome Reborn [1993] 15, pl. 11). |
| 1501 | Aldus Manutius of Venice issues an edition of Virgil in Italic type designed by Francesco Griffo. This is the first book printed in Italic type, an adaptation of the best humanist script of the time. Italic type may also have the advantage of having a higher character count, allowing more information to be printed legibly in less space than Roman or Gothic type. Aldus' edition of Virgil is the first of a series of volumes that he issues in the pocket or octavo format. This smaller format had previously been used for editions of devotional texts. Aldus is the first to use the smaller format to make non-devotional literature available in the smaller, more portable format, and at lower cost. Both the Italic type and the smaller format will be rapidly emulated by printers all over Europe. |
| 1505 | By the time he leaves the Abbey at Sponheim Trithemius has expanded its library to 2000 volumes of printed books and manuscripts from the 40 works present in the library when he became Abbot in 1482. This is an exceptionally large library for the time. Its increase in size reflects the increased availability of information after the development and spread of printing. |
| 1514 | Gregorio de Gregorii, a Venetian, publishes a Book of Hours entitled Kitab Salat al-Sawa'i, probably for export to the Christian communities of Syria. This is the first book in Arabic printed by moveable type. |
1516 |
Trithemius’s Polygraphiae, a book on many forms of writing, is published in the year of his death. It is the first book on codes and cryptography. |
| 1516 | At Fez, Morocco, Jewish refugees who had worked for the printer Rabbi Eliezer Toledano in Lisbon, set up the first press on the African continent. |
| 1537/38 | The Venetian printer Alessandro Paganini produces the first printed edition of the Qur'an (Koran) in Arabic. The edition is probably intended for export to the Ottoman Empire. The abundant errors and poor appearance of the type, however,appear to have ruined all prospects of success for this edition. Presumably, the copies published were confiscated and destroyed by the Ottomans. For a long time this edition was thought to be lost, and the rumor was that the Pope had the complete print run burned. Only two copies appear to have survived. |
1538 November 16 |
Henry VIII decrees that all new books printed in England must be approved by the Privy Council before publication. This requirement will remain in effect in some form until 1694. |
1540 |
Vannuccio Biringuccio publishes De Re Pirotechnia at Venice. It is the first comprehensive treatise on the pyrotechnic or "fire-using" arts, including mining, metallurgy, applied chemistry, gunpowder, military arts and fireworks. Significantly for book history it contains the first description of type-casting. |
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| 1920194019501960 |
(This page was last revised on
November 6, 2006
. Please report errors
and broken links to jnorman@jnorman.com.) |
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