Taking Measure: The Printing Press in Europe, ca. 1500
The chart shows the number of towns in each place that had printing presses by 1500. Printing presses were most prevalent in the German lands, where the invention first took root, and the northern Italian states. As the Reformation spread after 1517 printing also flourished. In England, for example, only 550 books were printed in the 1520s compared with more than 900 in the 1540s.
Source: Adapted from the map in Lucien Febvre, The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing 1450–1800 (Verso, 1976), 184–85.
Questions to Consider
- What is the link between the number of printing presses in German lands and the coming of the Reformation?
- Why did Italian towns have so many printing presses?