From typefounding through typesetting to the printing process itself, this narrative offers a fresh look at the unprecedented success story of the spread of the "black art." Stephan Fÿssel here foregrounds the tremendous rise European culture and the history of education experienced as a direct result of this media revolution; he depicts the fast spreading of the art of printing to Italy, France and England, highlighting the importance of the art of printing for the Roman Catholic Church, the Reformation, the University and the economy. He shows popular instruction at work in the vernacular, as well as the consolidation of knowledge into encyclopaedias in the early modern period, and the emergence of new forms of the prose novel and the beginnings of newspapers and periodicals. Finally he traces the modern resonances of Gutenberg's invention, which persisted in virtually unchanged form for a further 350 years.
