Printing and Printedness

The introduction of printing by moveable type and the development of engraving and other intaglio processes from the mid-fifteenth century transformed the ways in which books and documents were published. Manuscripts had enjoyed European-wide circulation, but the print-led increase in the volume of publication, the accuracy and redesign of textual replication, its social penetration and the rapidity of its circulation encouraged new modes of social interaction and new methods in the construction and dissemination of knowledge. The printing revolution challenged political and religious authority, resulting in new attempts at intellectual censorship and the restraint of publication. Resurgent interest in historical bibliography has inspired dozens of studies of an early modern ?print culture?. The novelty and effectiveness of the transmission of print, however, were tempered by technological and transport constraints that suggest fitful and uneven development, but one that was pan-European and essentially transnational in its character and significance.