The Printing Press

Printing Press

• Mid-1400s, Johannes Gutenberg cast letters of alphabet on metal plates, locked metal plates on wooden press; perfected movable type printing

• Result, one of most dramatic upheavals world has ever known

Italics

• Gutenberg’s first publication, 1,282-page Bible

• Printers soon appeared in other cities, made books quickly, inexpensively

• Explosion of printed material quickly spread Renaissance ideas

Printed Word Available to More

• Before only way to reproduce writing was by hand; long, painstaking process

• With movable type, text quickly printed; producing books faster, cheaper

• Easier access to books prompted more people to learn to read

A Book Revolution

Religious Leaders

Luther Starts the Reformation; Text, p. 429; Packet p. 22

1. In 1517, Luther posts his 95 Theses on the church doors at Wittenberg.

Luther attacks a monk named Tetzel for selling indulgences.

CAUSES EVENT or SITUATION EFFECTS

Above: The church doors

At Luther’s church in

Wittenberg. Other pics,

Wittenberg, 2002.

Luther’s words are printed and spread all over Germany and attract many followers.

PP Design of T. Loessin; Akins High School

New Philosophers and Writers

Northern humanists expressed their own ideas

Combined interests of theology, fiction and history

Created philosophical works, novels, dramas, and poems

• Combined Christian ideas, humanism

• Wrote of pure, simple Christian life, educating children

• Fanned flames of discontent

• Roman Catholic Church censored, condemned works

Desiderius Erasmus

• More’s best-known work, Utopia, contains criticisms of English government, society

• Presents vision of perfect, non-existent society based on reason

Sir Thomas More

• Italian-born writer focused on role of women in society

• Grew up in French court of Charles V; turned to writing when widowed

• Championed equality, education for women

Christine de Pisan

Philosophers and Writers

Greek Thought

“Man is the measure of all things.”

-Protagoros

“The first men were nurtured and reared within fish.”

- Anaximander

“The so-called sacred malady (sickness), then, is produced by the same type of cause as other ailments—by the things that pass into and out of our bodies, such as cold and sunlight and the inconstant restless winds.”

- Hippocrates

Science

“Virtue consists not in avoiding wrongdoing, but in being without any wish for it.”

- Democritus

Philosophy

The Ancient Greeks