REN442: The Renaissance Book (2023)

Anchor of Hope Printer’s Mark

When Johannes Gutenberg introduced his new invention, the printing press, in the 1450s, he could not have realized how much this new technology would transform Renaissance Europe. His new method of using moveable metal type to reproduce multiple copies of printed text from a single template, though mechanically simple by modern standards, revolutionized the way people in the Renaissance produced, read, and circulated books. The exhibits presented here explore the profound influence of print technology on three major cultural and intellectual movements in Renaissance history: humanism, religious reform, and the scientific revolution. The exhibit pages, each designed by a student of REN442, focus on rare books from the CRRS holdings as case studies demonstrating how the printed book both shaped and was shaped by the radically new ideas proliferating in the Renaissance.