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Who developed movable-type printing in Europe around the 1440s?
His press in Mainz made books cheaper and spread ideas across Europe.
Johannes Gutenberg, a goldsmith from Mainz, is credited with developing a practical system of printing from movable metal type in Europe around 1450. The key innovations were a mold for casting uniform individual letters in a metal alloy, an oil-based ink that adhered to metal, and a press adapted from those used for wine and olives. Together these allowed a page to be set, printed in volume and reset for a new page.
His best-known product is the 42-line Bible in Latin, printed in Mainz and probably finished by about 1455. The Library of Congress describes it as set in dense Gothic type, mostly in two columns of 42 lines, with initials and headings added by hand. Some copies were printed on vellum and some on paper, and the Library of Congress holds one of only a few complete vellum copies.
A common misconception is that Gutenberg invented printing. Woodblock printing was used in East Asia centuries earlier, and Korean printers used movable metal type in the 1200s, as in the Jikji of 1377, so Gutenberg's achievement is the European development and its scale. His own business was not a success: the financier Johann Fust took legal action to recover loans, and Gutenberg lost the equipment. Within decades, presses spread across Europe and reduced book costs.