The Gutenberg Revolution

Summary points:

• Gutenberg's influential technological advance, the Gutenberg press, largely came out of an demand. This demand stemmed from the idea that the public was becoming more literate and more interested in owning manuscripts. The written word was no longer for the select few as it were in previous years. This growing literate populace wanted books faster than what the traditional scribal method could offer. As EWM majors maybe it's easier to understand this through the lens of rhetoric. If we view Gutenberg as a rhetorician and the lack of an efficient way to produce books for a growing literacy as the exigience, then this all makes perfect sense.
• The way that Gutenberg's moveable type was "for each character, a punch was cut in steel. Then a steel punch was used to stamp the character in a copper matrix of fixed dimensions. The matrix was carefully adjusted to fit exactly into a mold, a hinged form which, when closed, was filled with hot, liquid metal with a low melting point, an alloy of lead, tin, and traces of other metals (commonly antimony). The mold would determine exactly the dimensions of the resulting character: of its surface at the top with the character- image (or body, in typographical terms) and its height to paper" This was important because it allowed a single press to create hundreds of different types of texts just by rearranging the letters.

Comment:
            I found it interesting how in the reading it said that the invention of moveable type spread quickly to larger cities, especially ones that had large universities in them, but while smaller towns adopted the moveable type printing press, they usually discontinued use of it after the need was fulfilled. This kind of got me thinking about technological trends, however this is primarily interesting considering this technology wasn't like the Laser Disc, it actually shaped the way texts were manufactured from that point forward. I just found that interesting.

Question:
          In the reading it was mentioned how different types of typography or styles were used depending on the type of script. For example, a liturgy would have a different type of style than a humanist text would. What was the purpose of the styles? Did it serve as a form of visual rhetoric?