Why today’s Google Doodle pays homage to Johannes Gutenberg

Today’s doodle pays homage to Johannes Gutenberg, the father of modern movable type printing. The researcher decided to remember him on this date because it is the anniversary of the retrospective exhibition that the Gutenberg Museum held in his honor in 2000.

Gutenberg, whose real name is Johannes Gensfleisch, was born around 1400 in Mainz, Germany. He is believed to have studied in Erfurt, according to documents found. Around 1434, he emigrated to Strasbourg, where he worked as a goldsmith. In the late 1430s, historians believe Gutenberg began to develop a more efficient text printing device in an attempt to pay off the debts of a bankrupt mirror company.

The machine he invented replaced the hand-carved wooden letters and graphic blocks of traditional printers with easy-to-cast types of metal, which were then dipped in proprietary ink to print entire pages at once.

One of the great advantages of this system is that it allowed to reproduce texts on a large scale and with a speed never seen before. This undoubtedly implied a great revolution in knowledge.

In 1450, Gutenberg made the first successful impression of his invention: a book in Latin on how to deliver speeches. From there, Gutenberg kept moving forward, betting on hiring an assembly line crew to produce books faster than ever. Another milestone in its history occurs in 1452, when the 42-line edition of the Bible, also known as the Gutenberg Bible, began.

In 1455, the inventor, who had not properly calculated the cost and time it would take to print the 150 Bibles he had offered, lacked financial solvency to repay the loan that had been granted by Johann Fust, with whom he had previously associated. and to whom he had entrusted his son-in-law, Peter Schöffer, with the supervision of Gutenberg’s work.

Due to this economic situation that the inventor was going through, which prevented him from returning the borrowed money, the company was dissolved and Fust, together with his son-in-law, continued to print the Bibles which were quickly sold. . It was the start of a successful business for both and the start of a change that marked a before and after in the production and distribution of texts.

The printing press of this great inventor printed up to 3,600 pages in an average working day, fueling the first large-scale book production in Europe. However, despite this great contribution, his later years suffered from financial difficulties. He died, in debt and unable to take advantage of the economic benefits of his invention, on February 3, 1468.

By the 16th century, around 200 million books were printed thanks to his invention, ushering in a new era of mass communication and a new branch of media: the press. Today, Gutenberg’s legacy continues with Project Gutenberg, an online library with over 60,000 free books.

The doodle can be seen from Argentina, Chile, Peru, the United States, much of Europe, and Oceania.

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