Global spread of the printing press

Germany , the first major European work printed by mechanical movable type Gutenberg's first major print work was the 42-line Bible in Latin, probably printed between 1452 and 1454 in the German city of Mainz. After Gutenberg lost a lawsuit against his investor, Johann Fust, Fust put Gutenberg's employee Peter Schöffer in charge of the print shop. Thereupon Gutenberg established a new one with the financial backing of another money lender. With Gutenberg's monopoly revoked, and the technology no longer secret, printing spread throughout Germany and beyond, diffused first by emigrating German printers, but soon also by foreign apprentices. Europe In rapid succession, printing presses were set up in Central and Western Europe. Major towns, in particular, functioned as centers of diffusion (Cologne 1466, Rome 1467, Venice 1469, Paris 1470, Buda 1473, Kraków 1473, London 1477). In 1481, barely 30 years after the publication of the 42-line Bible, the small Netherlands already featured printing shops in 21 cities and towns, while Italy and Germany each had shops in about 40 towns at that time. According to one estimate, "by 1500, 220 printing presses were in operation throughout Western Europe and had produced 8 million books" and during the 1550s there were "three hundred or more" printers and booksellers in Geneva alone. The output was in the order of twenty million volumes and rose in the sixteenth century tenfold to between 150 and 200 million copies. Germany and Italy were considered the two main centres of printing in terms of quantity and quality. Rest of the world The near-simultaneous discovery of sea routes to the West (Christopher Columbus, 1492) and East (Vasco da Gama, 1498) and the subsequent establishment of trade links greatly facilitated the global spread of Gutenberg-style printing. Traders, colonists, but perhaps most importantly, missionaries exported printing presses to the new European oversea domains, setting up new print shops and distributing printing material. In the Americas, the first extra-European print shop was founded in Mexico City in 1544 (or 1539), and soon after Jesuits started operating the first printing press in Asia (Goa, 1556). According to Suraiya Faroqhi, lack of interest and religious reasons were among the reasons for the slow adoption of the printing press outside Europe: Thus, printing in the Arabic script, after encountering strong opposition by Muslim legal scholars and manuscript scribes, remained formally or informally prohibited in the Ottoman Empire between 1483 and 1729, according to some sources even on penalty of death, while some movable Arabic type printing was done by Pope Julius II (1503−1512) for distribution among Middle Eastern Christians, and the oldest Quran printed with movable type was produced in Venice in 1537/1538 for the Ottoman market. Hebrew texts and presses were imported across the Middle East – as early as 1493 – Constantinople, Fez (1516), Cairo (1557) and Safed (1577). Disquiet among Muslims regarding the publication of religious texts in this way may have dampened down their production. In 1831, Israel Bak brought a Hebrew printing press from his family business in Berdichev, Ukraine to Safed and Jerusalem, and began printing the first Hebrew texts in the land of Israel in more than 250 years. In India, reports are that Jesuits "presented a polyglot Bible to the Emperor Akbar in 1580 but did not succeed in arousing much curiosity." But also practical reasons seem to have played a role. The English East India Company, for example, brought a printer to Surat in 1675, but was not able to cast type in Indian scripts, so the venture failed. == Dates by location ==

The following represents a selection: Germany, Austria and German printers in Central Europe Rest of Europe Italy In the 15th century, printing presses were established in 77 Italian cities and towns. At the end of the following century, 151 locations in Italy had seen at one time printing activities, of which 130 (86%) were north of Rome. During these two centuries a total of 2894 printers were active in Italy, with only 216 of them located in southern Italy. Around 60% of the Italian printing shops were situated in six cities (Venice, Rome, Milan, Naples, Bologna and Florence), with the concentration of printers in Venice being particularly high (approximately 30%). Switzerland France Apart from the cities above, a small number of lesser towns also set up printing presses. Spain Belgium Netherlands In 1481, printing was already being done in 21 towns and cities. Hungary In the 16th century, a total of 20 print shops were active in 30 different places in Hungary, as some of them were moving several times due to political instability. Poland In the 15th and 16th centuries, printing presses were also established in Poznań, Lwów, Brześć Litewski and Vilnius. Latvia Ukraine Wales Estonia Finland Georgia The first books printed in Georgian were Alphabetum Ibericum sive Georgianum cum Oratione and Dittionario giorgiano e italiano published in Rome in 1629. Armenia The first book which had Armenian letters was published in Mainz in 1486. The first Armenian book to be published by the printing press was Urbatagirq—Book of Friday prayers—which was published by Hakob Meghapart in Venice in 1512. Greenland Latin America Mexico Peru Guatemala Paraguay Cuba Colombia Ecuador Chile Argentina Puerto Rico Uruguay Brazil Venezuela Africa Asia South Asia Ottoman Empire According to some sources, Sultan Bayezid II and successors prohibited printing in Arabic script in the Ottoman Empire from 1483 on penalty of death, but printing in other scripts was done by Jews as well as the Greek, Armenian, and other Christian communities (1515 Saloniki, 1554 Bursa (Adrianople), 1552 Belgrade, 1658 Smyrna). Arabic-script printing by non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire began with the press of Athanasius Dabbas in Aleppo in 1706. In 1727, Sultan Achmed III gave his permission for the establishment of the first legal print house for printing secular works by Muslims in Arabic script (Islamic religious publications still remained forbidden), but printing activities did not really take off until the 19th century. Southeast Asia East Asia Iran United States and Canada Australia and Oceania == See also ==