Princeton Librarian Questions
Gutenberg’s Invention of Moveable Type
Two researchers at Princeton University who have examined Johann Gutenberg’s texts using new computer techniques have found that the 15th-century printer may not have been the inventor of moveable type after all.
Paul Needham, the librarian of Princeton’s Scheide Library, and library research specialist Blaise Aguera y Arcas announced their findings at New York City’s Grolier Club January 22. Using mathematical models to compare two Gutenberg Bibles and other documents from the mid-1400s, they discovered that the individual letters differed in shape enough that they could not have come from the same metal mold, the New York Times reported January 27. They believe that Gutenberg employed a cruder printing method using molds made of sand; since these could not be reused, the process required making additional molds that would produce slightly different letters.
“They have figured out that the whole history of early printing is wrong,” Princeton history professor Anthony Grafton told the Times. “There wasn’t one heroic discovery,” but rather a gradual process involving multiple innovators.
Posted February 26, 2001.
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