European letterpress printing system

Timeline

1. 1450–1460Mainz · MainzJohannes Gutenberg in Mainz combined adjustable metal type, oil-based ink, and the screw press to print the 42-line Bible, establishing the technical combination of European letterpress printing and shifting book production from hand copying to a replicable industrial product.
2. 1561–1565Antwerp · AntwerpChristophe Plantin ran one of Europe's largest printing workshops in Antwerp, publishing multilingual Bibles, humanist classics, and illustrated herbals in parallel; type casting, proofreading, and binding were maturely divided, forming a model workshop system for the early modern publishing industry.
3. 1566–1570Venice–Lyon · VeniceVenice continued the Aldine italic tradition of publishing Greek classics and scientific works, while Lyon printers supplied the French court and universities with French-language texts, music, and textbooks; the two cities exchanged typefaces and copyrights through the letterpress trade network, forming the printing artery of European knowledge circulation in the later Reformation era.
4. 1566–1570Rome–Antwerp · RomeAfter the Council of Trent (1545–1563) closed, the papacy and Catholic publishers printed large quantities of conciliar decrees, catechisms, and indexes of forbidden books; letterpress printing became the technical means of standardizing Counter-Reformation ideology, competing for public opinion with Protestant printing networks.