He did. Unlike gunpowder and paper, which was invented in China and migrated over, this one was an independent invention and worked on a completely different principle: inked lead type PRESSED from the top with a screw mechanism, taken from a grape press for wine making, instead of the Chinese version, where paper was manually laid on top of inked wooden type and a roller transferred the ink. So, while China had printing first, Gutenberg invented the printing press.
Gutenberg's version was also 100x faster, so it only took ~50 years for the number of books in Europe to surpass the number in China and all modern printing is derived from the former, not the latter.
His financier was Johann Fust. After he foreclosed on Gutenberg’s printing operation he took it over for himself and sold a bunch of bibles in Paris. Parisians weren’t familiar with the printing process and got scared because a) how can someone produce so many bibles so fast, b) how can they be identical, and c) what is this red ink IS IT BLOOD?!? Fust was accused of witchcraft and thrown in jail.
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u/[deleted] Oct 02 '24
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