The Renaissance in Print: Humanism, Reformation, and Early Science

VIC 449 Course Exhibit 2017

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. Each exhibit page focuses 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.

Contributers: Sonia Hardeep Bumrah, Angelo Serrentino, Konrad Boeschenstein, Cassandra Lima, Holly Forsythe Paul, Shaun Ross.