34 Ch. 1 • Medieval Legacies and Transforming Discoveries

patron of Renaissance art, hired 200 scribes to copy 200 volumes in two

years' time.

All this changed in the fifteenth century when Flemish craftsmen
invented a kind of oil-based ink. This and the innovation of a wooden hand
press made possible the invention of movable metal type in the German
cathedral town of Mainz in about 1450 by, among several others, Johannes
Gutenberg (c. 1395-1468). His stunningly beautiful Latin Bibles are trea­
sured today. Printing shops soon started up in the Italian states, Bohemia,
France, and the Netherlands, and in Spain and England by the 1470s (see
Map 1.3). By 1500, about 35,000 books were published each year in Eu­
rope, and a century later the number had jumped to between 150,000 and

200,000 books.

Books provided scholars with identical ancient and medieval texts to dis­

cuss and critique. Accounts of discoveries and adventures in the New World

filtered across Europe from Spain, England, and France. The number of

scholarly libraries—which were really just private collections—grew rapidly.

New professions developed: librarians, booksellers, publishers, typesetters,

Map 1.3 Spread of Printing through Europe, 1450­

1508 Towns and dates at which printing shops were estab­

lished throughout Europe.