Printing Press

This illustration from a French manuscript of 1537 depicts typical printing equipment of the sixteenth century. An artisan is using the screw press to apply the inked type to the paper. Also shown are the composed type secured in a chase, the printed sheet (four pages of text printed on one sheet) held by the seated proofreader, and the bound volume. When two pages of text were printed on one standard-sized sheet, the bound book was called a folio. A bound book with four pages of text on one sheet was called a quarto (“in four”), and a book with eight pages of text on one sheet was called an octavo (“in eight”). The octavo was a pocket-size book, smaller than today’s paperback. (The Granger Collection, NYC—All rights reserved.)