The global spread of the printing press began with the invention of the printing press with movable type by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz, Germany .[1] Western printing technology was adopted in all world regions by the end of the 19th century, displacing the manuscript and block printing.
In the Western world, the operation of a press became synonymous with the enterprise of publishing and lent its name to a new branch of media, the "press" (see List of the oldest newspapers).
Gutenberg's first major print work was the 42-line Bible in Latin, printed probably between 1452 and 1454 in the German city of Mainz. After Gutenberg lost a lawsuit against his investor, Johann Fust, Fust put Gutenberg's employee Peter Schöffer in charge of the print shop. Thereupon Gutenberg established a new one with the financial backing of another money lender. With Gutenberg's monopoly revoked, and the technology no longer secret, printing spread throughout Germany and beyond, diffused first by emigrating German printers, but soon also by foreign apprentices.
In rapid succession, printing presses were set up in Central and Western Europe. Major towns, in particular, functioned as centers of diffusion (Cologne 1466, Rome 1467, Venice 1469, Paris 1470, Buda 1473, Kraków 1473, London 1477). In 1481, barely 30 years after the publication of the 42-line Bible, the small Netherlands already featured printing shops in 21 cities and towns, while Italy and Germany each had shops in about 40 towns at that time. According to one estimate, "by 1500, 1000 printing presses were in operation throughout Western Europe and had produced 8 million books"[2] and during the 1550s there were "three hundred or more" printers and booksellers in Geneva alone.[3] The output was in the order of twenty million volumes and rose in the sixteenth century tenfold to between 150 and 200 million copies.[4] Germany and Italy were considered the two main centres of printing in terms of quantity and quality.
The near-simultaneous discovery of sea routes to the West (Christopher Columbus, 1492) and East (Vasco da Gama, 1498) and the subsequent establishment of trade links greatly facilitated the global spread of Gutenberg-style printing. Traders, colonists, but perhaps most importantly, missionaries exported printing presses to the new European oversea domains, setting up new print shops and distributing printing material. In the Americas, the first extra-European print shop was founded in Mexico City in 1544 (1539?), and soon after Jesuits started operating the first printing press in Asia (Goa, 1556).
According to Suraiya Faroqhi, lack of interest and religious reasons were among the reasons for the slow adoption of the printing press outside Europe: Thus, printing in the Arabic script, after encountering strong opposition by Muslim legal scholars and manuscript scribes, remained formally or informally prohibited in the Ottoman Empire between 1483 and 1729, according to some sources even on penalty of death,[5] [6] while some movable Arabic type printing was done by Pope Julius II (1503−1512) for distribution among Middle Eastern Christians, and the oldest Qur’an printed with movable type was produced in Venice in 1537/1538 for the Ottoman market.
Hebrew texts and presses were imported across the Middle East - as early as 1493 - Constantinople, Fez (1516), Cairo (1557) and Safed (1577). Disquiet among Muslims regarding the publication of religious texts in this way may have dampened down their production.[7]
In India, reports are that Jesuits "presented a polyglot Bible to the Emperor Akbar in 1580 but did not succeed in arousing much curiosity."[8] But also practical reasons seem to have played a role. The English East India Company, for example, brought a printer to Surat in 1675, but was not able to cast type in Indian scripts, so the venture failed.[8]
North America saw the adoption by the Cherokee Indian Elias Boudinot who published the tribe's first newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, from 1828, partly in the Cherokee language, using the Cherokee script recently invented by his compatriot Sequoyah.
In the 19th century, the arrival of the Gutenberg-style press to the shores of Tahiti (1818), Hawaii (1821) and other Pacific islands, marked the end of a global diffusion process which had begun almost 400 years earlier. At the same time, the "old style" press (as the Gutenberg model came to be termed in the 19th century), was already in the process of being displaced by industrial machines like the steam powered press (1812) and the rotary press (1833), which radically departed from Gutenberg's design, but were still of the same development line.[9]
The following represents a selection:[10]
See also: Books in Germany.
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1452–53[11] | Mainz | Johannes Gutenberg, Peter Schöffer, Johann Fust (investor) | Gutenberg Bible |
| ~1457 | Bamberg | Albrecht Pfister, Johann Sensenschmid (from 1480) | Pfister: first woodcut book illustration c. 1461[12] [13] |
| 1460 | Strassburg | Johannes Mentelin, Johann Grüninger (1482) | In 1605, Johann Carolus publishes the German Relation aller Fuernemmen und gedenckwuerdigen Historien (Collection of all distinguished and commemorable news), recognized by the World Association of Newspapers as the first newspaper.[14] |
| ~1465 | Cologne | Ulrich Zell, Busaus, Gymnici, Mylij, Quentell | |
| 1468 | Augsburg | Günther Zainer[15] | |
| Not later than 1469 | Nuremberg | Johann Sensenschmidt, Johannes Regiomontanus (1472–75), Anton Koberger (1473–1513)Johann Endter (1625-1670) | Nuremberg Chronicle |
| ~1471 | Speyer | ||
| ~1472 | Lauingen | ||
| 1473 | Esslingen am Neckar | ||
| 1473 | Merseburg | ||
| 1473 | Ulm | ||
| ~1473–74 | Erfurt | ||
| ~1474 | Lübeck | 1488, Missale Aboense and other versions, first books for the Scandinavian and Finnish markets, by Bartholomeus Ghotan | |
| 1475 | Breslau (now Wrocław) | Kasper Elyan of Glogau [16] | Kasper's print shop remained operational until 1483 with an overall output of 11 titles. |
| 1475 | Trento | ||
| ~1475 | Blaubeuren | ||
| ~1475 | Rostock | ||
| 1476 | Reutlingen | ||
| ~1478–79 | Memmingen | ||
| 1479 | Würzburg | Georg Reyser | |
| 1479 | Magdeburg | ||
| 1480 | Passau | ||
| 1480 | Leipzig | , Andreas Friesner | |
| ~1480 | Eichstätt | ||
| 1482 | Vienna | Johann Winterburger | |
| 1482 | Munich | Johann Schauer | |
| ~1482 | Heidelberg | ||
| 1484 | Ingolstadt | ||
| 1485 | Münster | ||
| ~1485 | Regensburg | ||
| 1486 | Schleswig | Stephan Arndes | |
| ~1486 | Stuttgart | ||
| ~1488 | Hamburg | ||
| 1489 | Hagenau | ||
| 1491 | Freiburg | ||
| 1492 | Marienburg | Jakob Karweyse | Only two editions printed |
See also: Books in Italy.
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1465 | Subiaco | Arnold Pannartz, Konrad Sweynheym | |
| 1467 | Rome | Ulrich Hahn, Arnold Pannartz, Konrad Sweynheym (from 1467) | |
| 1469 | Venice | Johann von Speyer, shortly afterwards Nikolaus Jenson from Tours, Aldus Manutius | Johann was granted a privilege for 5 years for movable type printing by the Senate, but died soon after.[17] In 1501, Ottaviano Petrucci produced the first book of sheet music printed from movable type. |
| 1470 | Milan | Filippo de Lavagna, Antonio Zaroto, shortly afterwards Waldarfer von Regensburg | |
| 1470 | Naples | ||
| 1471 | Florence | Demetrius Damilas | Earliest printing in Greek |
| 1471 | Genoa | ||
| 1471 | Ferrara | ||
| 1471 | Bologna | Probably in 1477, claimed to have the first engraved illustrations,[18] although the 1476 Boccaccio edition by Colard Mansion in Bruges already had copper engravings[19] | |
| 1471 | Padua | ||
| 1471 | Treviso | ||
| 1472 | Parma | ||
| 1473 | Pavia | ||
| 1473 | Brescia | ||
| ~1473–74 | Modena | ||
| 1483 | Soncino | Israel Nathan ben Samuel and Soncino Family | |
| 1484 | Siena | ||
In the 15th century, printing presses were established in 77 Italian cities and towns. At the end of the following century, 151 locations in Italy had seen at one time printing activities, of which 130 (86%) were north of Rome. During these two centuries a total of 2894 printers were active in Italy, with only 216 of them located in southern Italy. Ca. 60% of the Italian printing shops were situated in six cities (Venice, Rome, Milan, Naples, Bologna and Florence), with the concentration of printers in Venice being particularly high (ca. 30%).
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| ~1468 | Basel | Berthold Ruppel | |
| 1470 | Beromünster | ||
| ~1474 | Burgdorf[20] | ||
| 1478 | Geneva | Adam Steinschaber[21] | |
| ~1479 | Zürich | ||
| 1577 | Schaffhausen | ||
| 1577 | St. Gallen | ||
| 1585 | Fribourg | ||
| 1664 | Einsiedeln | ||
See also: Books in France.
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1470 | Paris | Ulrich Gering, Martin Crantz, Michael Friburger | |
| 1473 | Lyon | Guillaume Le Roy, Buyer | |
| ~1475 | Toulouse | ||
| 1476–77 | Angers | ||
| ~1477–78 | Vienne | ||
| 1478–79 | Chablis | ||
| 1479 | Poitiers | ||
| 1480 | Caen | ||
| 1480–82 | Rouen | ||
| 1483 | Troyes | ||
| 1484–85 | Rennes | ||
| 1486 | Abbeville | ||
| ~1486–88 | Besançon | ||
| 1490–91 | Orléans | ||
| 1491 | Dijon | ||
| 1491 | Angoulême | ||
| 1493 | Nantes[22] | ||
| 1493–94 | Tours | ||
| 1495–96 | Limoges | ||
| 1497 | Avignon | ||
| 1500 | Perpignan | ||
Apart from the cities above, a small number of lesser towns also set up printing presses.
See also: Books in Spain.
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1471-1472 | Segovia | Johannes Parix | |
| ~1472-74 | Seville | ||
| ~1472-1473 | Barcelona | Heinrich Botel, Georgius vom Holtz, Johannes Planck | |
| ~1472–73 | Valencia | Lambert Palmart, Jakob Vinzlant | |
| 1475 | Zaragoza | Matthias Flander, Paul Hurus | |
| ~1480 | Salamanca | ||
| 1485 | Burgos | ||
| 1486 | Toledo[23] | ||
| 1496 | Granada | Meinrad Ungut, Hans Pegnitzer | |
| 1499 | Montserrat | Oldest publishing house in the world still running | |
| 1500 | Madrid | ||
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1473[24] | Aalst | Dirk Martens | |
| 1473–74 | Leuven | Johann von Westphalen | |
| ~1473–74 | Bruges | Colard Mansion | Worked with, and (?) trained William Caxton, printing the first books in English (Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye) and also French, as well as the first book to use engravings for illustrations. |
| 1475–76 | Brussels | ||
| 1480 | Oudenaarde | Arend De Keysere | |
| 1481 | Antwerp | Matt. Van der Goes | |
| 1483 | Ghent | Arend De Keysere | |
See also: Books in the Netherlands.
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1473 | Utrecht | ||
| 1477 | Gouda | Gerard Leeu | |
| 1477 | Deventer | Richard Paffroad | |
| 1477 | Zwolle | ||
| 1477 | Delft | Jacob Jacobzoon | |
| 1483 | Haarlem | Jacob Bellaert | |
In 1481, printing was already being done in 21 towns and cities.
In the 16th century, a total of 20 print shops were active in 30 different places in Hungary, as some of them were moving several times due to political instability.
See main article: Early printing in Poland.
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1473 | Kraków | Kasper Straube | The oldest printed work in Poland is the Latin Calendarium cracoviense (Cracovian Calendar), a single-sheet astronomical almanac for the year 1474. Although Straube continued to published in Kraków until 1477, printing became permanently established in Kraków, and Poland, only after 1503. In 1491, the first book in Cyrillic script was published by Schweipolt Fiol from Franconia.[27] In 1513, Florian Ungler printed Hortulus Animae, the first book in the Polish language. |
| 1499 | Danzig | Franz Rhode | 1538: Wisby'sches Waterrecht, 1540: Narratio Prima |
| 1580 | Warsaw | ||
| 1593 | Lwów | Matthias Bernhart | |
In the 15th and 16th centuries printing presses were also established in Poznań, Lwów, Brześć Litewski and Vilnius.
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| ~1475–76 | Plzeň | Mikuláš Bakalář (name known since 1488) | Statuta Ernesti (1476, Latin), The New Testament (1476, two editions in Czech), Passionale, The Chronicle of Troy (c. 1476, Czech) |
| 1486 | Brno | Conradus Stahel, Matthias Preinlein | Agenda Olomucensis 1486 and further 20, partly small prints in Latin until 1488.[28] |
| 1487 | Prague | The Chronicle of Troy 1487, Psalter 1487, The Bible 1488 (all in Czech); since 1512 printing in Hebrew, since 1517 in Cyrillic, too. | |
| 1489 | Kutná Hora | Martin z Tišnova | The Bible (in Czech) |
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1476 | Westminster | William Caxton | The first dated prints in England are an indulgence dating to 13 December 1476 (date written in by hand), and the Dicts or Sayings, completed on 18 November 1477. Between 1472 and 1476, Caxton had already published several English works on the continent (see Bruges above). |
| 1478 | Oxford | Theoderic Rood | |
| ~1479 | St Albans | 'Schoolmaster'; John Haule [29] | The St Albans Press produced eight known prints including The Chronicles of England. |
| 1480 | London | John Lettou, William Machlinia, Wynkyn de Worde | |
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1482 | Odense | Johann Snell | Snell was the first to introduce printing both in Denmark and Sweden. |
| 1493 | Copenhagen | Gottfried von Ghemen | Von Ghemen published in Copenhagen from 1493 to 1495 and from 1505 to 1510. In the meantime, he was active in the Dutch town of Leiden. For 200 years, official policy confined printing in Denmark largely to Copenhagen. |
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1483 | Stockholm | Johann Snell | Snell published the Dialogus creaturarum on Riddarholmen island in Stockholm on December 20, 1483. |
| Before 1495 | Vadstena | ||
| 1510 | Uppsala | ||
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1487 | Faro | Samuel Gacon (also called Porteiro) | The country's first printed book was the Hebrew Pentateuch, the Faro Pentateuch published by the Jew Samuel Gacon in southern Portugal, after having fled from the Spanish Inquisition. |
| 1488 | Chaves | Unknown | According to the German scholar Horch the Sacramental is the first book printed in Portuguese, and not Ludolphus de Saxonia's Livro de Vita Christi of 1495 as previously assumed. |
| 1489 | Lisbon | Rabbi Zorba, Raban Eliezer | Eliezer Toledano's Hebrew press was active with his foreman Judah Gedalia from 1489 until the expulsion in 1497 |
| 1492 | Leiria | ||
| 1494 | Braga | ||
| 1536 | Coimbra | ||
| 1571 | Viseu | ||
| 1583 | Angra do Heroísmo, Azores | ||
| 1622 | Porto | ||
| Date | City | Printer | Comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1483 | Kosinj, Lika | The is known for producing the Missale Romanum Glagolitice on February 22nd 1483. The Croatian text known as "Misal po zakonu rimskoga dvora" was significant as it is the first missal in Europe which was not printed in Latin script; only 28 years after the Gutenberg bible. | ||
| 1494 | Senj | Blaž Baromić | Blaž Baromić with his co-workers established printing house in Senj based on glagolitic script. Their first work was the Breviary of Senj. | |
| 1530[30] | Rijeka | Šimun Kožičić Benja |
| Date | City | Printer | Comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1493–94 | Cetinje | Đurađ IV Crnojević, Makarije | Đurađ IV Crnojević used the printing press brought to Cetinje by his father Ivan I Crnojević to print the first books in southeastern Europe, in 1493. The Crnojević printing press operated from 1493 through 1496, turning out religious books of which five have been preserved: Oktoih prvoglasnik, Oktoih petoglasnik, Psaltir, Molitvenik and Četvorojevanđelje (the first Bible in Serbian language). Đurađ managed the printing of the books, wrote prefaces and afterwords, and developed sophisticated tables of Psalms with the lunar calendar. The books from the Crnojević press were printed in two colors, red and black, and were richly ornamented. They served as models for many of the subsequent books printed in Cyrillic. | |
| 1537 | village Vrutci of Rujno Župa near Užice, | hieromonk Teodosije | The Rujan Four Gospels of the Rujno Monastery printing house | |
| 1552 | Belgrade | Trojan Gundulić | Četvorojevanđelje, Serbulje |
By 1500, the cut-off point for incunabula, 236 towns in Europe had presses, and it is estimated that twenty million books had been printed for a European population of perhaps seventy million.[12]
| Date | City | Printer | Comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1508 | Târgoviște | Hieromonk Makarije | Macarie is brought into Wallachia by the prince Radu cel Mare. The first printed book in Romania is made in 1508, Liturghierul. Octoihul is also printed in 1510, and Evangheliarul is printed in 1512[34] | |
| 1534 | Brașov | Johannes Honterus | At the time, the city was a part of the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom. | |
| 1545 | Târgoviște | Dimitrije Ljubavić | Mostly religious books are printed, among them being Molitvenik.[35] Books printed in Wallachia were also reprinted for use in Moldavia, which at the time did not have its own press. | |
| 1550 | Klausenburg (Cluj-Napoca) | At the time, the city was a part of the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom. | ||
| 1561 | Brașov | Coresi | Întrebare creştinească (Catehismul) |
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1515 | Saloniki | ||
| 1817 | Corfu | ||
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1522 | Vilnius | Francysk Skaryna[36] | The Little Traveller’s Book[37] |
| 1553 | Brest | Bernard Wojewódka[38] | Catechism |
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| mid-16th century | Trondheim | ||
| 1644 | Oslo | ||
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1553−54 | Moscow | Unknown | According to recent research, the Gospel Book and six others published then. |
| 1564 | Moscow | Ivan Fyodorov (printer) | Acts of the Apostles (Apostol) is the first dated book printed in Russia. |
| 1711 | Saint Petersburg | ||
| 1815 | Astrakhan | ||
Until the reign of Peter the Great printing in Russia remained confined to the print office established by Fedorov in Moscow. In the 18th century, annual printing output gradually rose from 147 titles in 1724 to 435 (1787), but remained constrained by state censorship and widespread illiteracy.
| Date | City | Printer | Comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1574 | Lviv | Ivan Fedorov | Apostol (the Acts and Epistles in Slavonic) | |
| 1593 | Lviv |
See main article: Armenian printing.
The first book which had Armenian letters was published in Mainz (Germany) in 1486. The first Armenian book to be published by the printing press was Urbatagirq—Book of Friday prayers—which was published by Hakob Meghapart in Venice in 1512.[44]
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1539[45] | Mexico City | Juan Pablos of Brescia[46] at the House of the First Print Shop in the Americas | Established by the archbishop Juan de Zumárraga, using Hans Cromberger from Seville, the first book printed was Breve y Mas Compendiosa Doctrina Christina, written in both Spanish and native Nahuatl.[47] Esteban Martín of Mexico City has been determined to be the first printer in the Western Hemisphere.[48] Between 1539 and 1600 presses produced 300 editions, and in the following century 2,007 editions were printed.[49] In the 16th century, more than 31% of locally produced imprints were in native Indian languages, mostly religious texts and grammars or vocabularies of Amerindian languages. In the 17th century, this rate dropped to 3% of total output.[50] |
| 1640 | Puebla | ||
| Date | City | Printer | Comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1776 | Santiago | Press functioned only briefly. In 1812 permanently established. | ||
| 1810 | Valparaíso |
| Date | City | Country | Printer | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1516 | Fez | Morocco | Jewish | Refugees who had worked for the printer Rabbi Eliezer Toledano in Lisbon[55] |
| 1557 | Cairo | Egypt | Gershom ben Eliezer Soncino | First printing press in the Middle East, known only from two fragments discovered in the Cairo Geniza.[56] |
| As early as the 16th century | Mozambique | Portuguese | ||
| Luanda | Angola | Portuguese | ||
| Malindi | Kenya | Portuguese | ||
| 1795 | Cape Town | South Africa [57] | Johann Christian Ritter German | Almanach voor't jaar 1796.[58] [59] The possibility of printing may be as early as 1784 when Ritter arrived in the Cape but no earlier output has surfaced.[60] Ritter is also said to have printed Almanacs for 1795 to 1797 suggesting a start to printing of 1794.[61] |
| 1798 | Cairo | Egypt | French | |
| c.1825 | Madagascar | English | Malagasy translation of the Assembly's Shorter Catechism[62] | |
| 1831 | Grahamstown | South Africa | Grahamstown Journal | |
| 1833 | Mauritius | |||
| 1841 | Pietermaritzburg | South Africa | Ivangeli e li yincucli, e li baliweyo G'Umatu | |
| 1841 | Umlazi | South Africa | Incuadi yokuqala yabafundayo | |
| 1856 | Bloemfontein | South Africa | Orange Vrystaad A.B.C. spel en leesboek | |
| 1855 | Scheppmansdorf (now: Rooibank) | Namibia | Franz Heinrich Kleinschmidt | On 29 June 1855, Protestant missionary Kleinschmidt published 300 copies of Luther's catechism in the Nama language which represent the first printed works in that tongue. Political unrest seems to have prevented further printing activities. The press was reported as being functional as late as 1868, but whether printing was resumed is unknown.[63] |
| 1863 | Massawa | Eritrea | Lorenzo Biancheri | An Italian Lazarist missionary set up the first printing press in Ethiopia to print missionary texts in Amharic. Biancheri called himself "Printer to His Majesty Emperor Theodros", but there is no evidence he had an imperial appointment. He died in 1864 and his press did not outlive him.[64] |
| 1870s [65] | Malawi | |||
| 1892 | Salisbury | Southern Rhodesia (now: Zimbabwe) | Rhodesia Herald in print, may have started earlier | |
| 1901 | Harar | Ethiopia | Fifth press in the Ethiopian Empire, but the first in what is today Ethiopia. Established by Franciscans, it printed periodicals in French and Amharic. It was later moved to Dire Dawa. | |
| Date | City | Country | Printer | Comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1556 | Goa | Portuguese India | Jesuits | The press was attached to St Paul's college. See Printing in Goa. | |
| 1674-75 | Bombay | British India | Bhimjee Parikh[66] / Henry Hills | East India Company supplied press, with only a Latin typeface | |
| 1712 | Tranquebar | Danish India | Danish-Halle/SPCK Mission | ||
| 1736 | Colombo | Ceylon, Dutch India | Dutch reform Church / Dutch East India Company | Printing in Dutch, Sinhala, and Tamil | |
| 1758 | Pondicherry | French India | Thomas Arthur, comte de Lally | Captured by the East India Company, and moved to Madras in 1761 | |
| 1761 | Madras | British India | Johann Phillip Fabricius | Printing in Tamil, using the captured Pondicherry press | |
| 1772 | Madras | British India | Shahamir Shahamirian, Armenian | The first book published here was Այբբենարան (Aybbenaran - Reading Primer) in Armenian. | |
| 1777, November | Calcutta | British India | James Augustus Hicky | Publisher of Hicky's Bengal Gazette | |
| 1778, January | Calcutta | British India | Robert William Kiernander and John Zachariah Kiernander | SPCK Missionaries | |
| Between 1777 and 1779 | Hooghly | British India | Charles Wilkins and Nathaniel Brassey Halhed | ||
| 1780, November | Calcutta | British India | Barnard Messink and Peter Reed | Publishers of the India Gazette | |
| 1792 | Bombay | British India | |||
| 1800 | Serampore | Danish India | Baptist Missionary Society | Printing Bibles and books in several Indian languages | |
| 1848 | Lahore | British India | Syed Muhammad Azeem | Lahore Chronicle Press, located in the old Naulakha palace, and printing in English and Farsi (Persian) |
| Date | City | Printer | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 13th, 1493 | Constantinople | David and Samuel ibn Nahmias, Hebrew | First ever printed book in Ottoman Empire was Arba'ah Turim in Hebrew.[67] Some argue the year and suggest 1503 or 1504. |
| 1519—1523 | the Church of Saint George in Sopotnica, Sanjak of Herzegovina, Ottoman Empire (today village in Novo Goražde, Republic of Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina). The books were printed in Church Slavonic of the Serbian recension. | Božidar Goraždanin | hieratikon (1519), psalter (1521) and a small euchologion (1523) |
| 1554 | Bursa | ||
| 1567 | Constantinople | Apkar Tebir, Armenian | The first book printed here was Փոքր քերականութիւն (Poqr Qerakanutyun - Brief Armenian Grammar) in Armenian |
| 1577 | Safed | Eliezer and Abraham ben Isaac Ashkenazi (apparently no relation) | First printing press in Western Asia, publishing in Hebrew. Eliezer, a native of Prague, operated in Lublin and Constantinople before settling in Safed. First printed Lekach Tov, a commentary on the Book of Esther by 18 year old Yom Tov Tzahalon.[68] |
| 1584 | St. Anthony's Monastery, Qozhaya, Lebanon | Introduced by Maronite Patriarch Sergius ar-Rezzi; psalter was printed the first time in 1585[69] | |
| 1610 | St. Anthony's Monastery, Qozhaya, Lebanon | Second printing press set up by Christian Maronites in Lebanon; printed both Syriac and Arabic in Syriac script | |
| 1627-28 | Istanbul | Nicodemus Metaxas | First printing press of Greek books in Ott.Empire. Closed down by the authorities in 1628[70] |
| 1706 | Aleppo | Athanasius Dabbas | First press for printing in the Arabic script in the Ottoman Empire; operated until 1711. Funded by Constantin Brâncoveanu and established with the assistance of Anthim the Iberian. |
| 1729 | Constantinople | Ibrahim Muteferrika | First press for printing in the Arabic script established by Muslims in the Ottoman Empire, against opposition from the calligraphers and parts of the Ulama. It operated until 1742, producing altogether seventeen works, all of which were concerned with non-religious, utilitarian matters. |
| 1734 | Monastery of St. John of Choueir, Khenchara, Lebanon | ʻAbd Allāh Zākhir | |
| 1759 | Smyrna (Izmir) | Markos, Armenian | |
| 1779 | Constantinople | James Mario Matra (Briton) | Abortive attempt to revive printing in the Ottoman lands |
According to some sources, Sultan Bayezid II and successors prohibited printing in Arabic script in the Ottoman empire from 1483 on penalty of death, but printing in other scripts was done by Jews as well as the Greek, Armenian, and other Christian communities (1515 Saloniki, 1554 Bursa (Adrianople), 1552 Belgrade, 1658 Smyrna). Arabic-script printing by non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire began with the press of Athanasius Dabbas in Aleppo in 1706. In 1727, Sultan Achmed III gave his permission for the establishment of the first legal print house for printing secular works by Muslims in Arabic script (Islamic religious publications still remained forbidden), but printing activities did not really take off until the 19th century.
| Date | City | Country | Printer | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1590 | Manila | Philippines | ||
| 1668 | Batavia | Indonesia | ||
| 1818 | Sumatra Island | Indonesia | ||
| Date | City | Country | Printer | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1590 | Nagasaki | Japan | Alessandro Valignano | The Jesuits in Nagasaki established The Jesuit Mission Press in Japan and printed a number of books in romanised Japanese language. |
| 1833 | Macao | China | The first presses were imported by Western priests for their missionary work from Europe and America. The earliest known, an albion press, was set up in the Portuguese colony Macao and later moved to Canton and Ningbo.[71] | |
| 1883 | Seoul | Korea | Inoue Kakugoro (Japanese) | The first printing press was imported from Japan for publishing Korea's first Korean-language newspaper Hansong Sunbo. After the press was destroyed by conservatives, Inoue returned with a new one from Japan, reviving the paper as a weekly under the name Hansong Chubo. Presses were also established in Seoul in 1885, 1888 and 1891 by Western missionaries. However, the earliest printing press was apparently introduced by the Japanese in the treaty port of Pusan in 1881 to publish Korea's first newspaper, the bilingual Chosen shinpo. |
| Date | City | Country | Printer | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1636 | New Julfa, Isfahan | Persia | Khachatur Kesaratsi, Armenian | The first book printed here was Սաղմոս ի Դավիթ (Saghmos i Davit - Psalter) in Armenian |
| 1820 | Tehran | Persia | ||
| 1817[72] | Tabriz | Persia | Zain al-Abidin Tabrizi (?) | |
| Date | City | Country | Printer | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1638 | Cambridge, Massachusetts | USA | Stephen Daye, Samuel Green (from 1649) | This printing shop was located in the home of the first president of Harvard College, Henry Dunster. It printed the first Bible in British North America in 1663, in English as well as Algonquian.[73] |
| 1682 | Jamestown, Virginia | USA | ||
| 1685 | Philadelphia | USA | William Bradford | |
| 1685 | St. Mary's City, Maryland | USA | William and Dinah Nuthead started a press in Annapolis in 1686[74] | |
| 1693 | New York | USA | William Bradford | |
| 1731 | Charleston, South Carolina | USA | ||
| 1735 | Germantown | USA | Christoph Sauer | |
| 1749 | New Bern, North Carolina | USA | ||
| 1752 | Halifax | Canada | John Bushell | The Halifax Gazette, Canada's first newspaper was published initially in this year. |
| 1761 | Wilmington, Delaware | USA | ||
| 1762 | Savannah, Georgia | USA | ||
| 1764 | New Orleans, Louisiana | Spanish Louisiana (later USA) | ||
| 1783 | St. Augustine, Florida | La Florida (New Spain) (later USA) | ||
| 1787 | Lexington, Kentucky | USA | ||
| 1791 | Rogersville, Tennessee | USA | ||
| 1828 | New Echota, Arkansas | USA | Elias Boudinot (Cherokee) | Boudinot published the Cherokee Phoenix as first newspaper of the tribe. |
| 1833 | Monterey, California | Mexico (later USA) | ||
| 1834 | Santa Fe | Mexico (later USA) | ||
| 1846 | San Francisco | USA | ||
| 1853 | Oregon | USA | ||
| 1858 | Vancouver Island | Canada | ||
| Date | City | Country | Printer | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1795 | ? | Australia | George Hughes | |
| 1802 | Sydney | Australia | George Howe | |
| 1818 | Hobart, Tasmania | Australia | ||
| 1818 | Tahiti | French Polynesia | ||
| 1821 | Hawaii | Kingdom of Hawaii | ||
| 1835 | Paihia | New Zealand | William Colenso | The first book was a Maori translation of part of the Bible commissioned by the Church Missionary Society: "Ko nga Pukapuka o Paora te Apotoro ki te Hunga o Epeha o Piripai" (The Epistles of St Paul to the Philippians and the Ephesians). |
| 1836 | Maui | Kingdom of Hawaii | ||
On the effects of Gutenberg's printing