Florence, Bologna, Milan, and Venice. In 1320 a paper factory was
established at Mainz, in Germany, and in 1390 another at Nuremberg. By
1450 paper was in common use and the way was now open for one of the
world's greatest inventions.

This was the invention of printing. From the difficulty experienced in
securing books for the great libraries at Florence, Urbino, and Rome, as
we have seen (Rs. 130, 131, 132), and the great cost of reproducing single
copies of books, we can see that the work of the humanists of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Italy probably would have had but
little influence elsewhere but for the invention of printing. To
disseminate a new learning involving two great literatures by copying
books, one at a time by hand, would have prevented instruction in the new
subjects becoming general for centuries, and would have materially
retarded the progress of the world. The discovery of the art of printing,
coming when it did, scattered the new learning over Europe.

[Illustration: FIG. 73. AN EARLY SIXTEENTH-CENTURY PRESS
"The prynters have founde a crafte to make bokis by brasen letters sette
in ordre by a frame." An engraving, dated 1520. The man at the right is
setting type, and the one at the lever is making an impression. A number
of four-page printed sheets are seen on the table at the right of the
press.]

SPREAD AND WORK OF THE PRESS. The dates connected with this new invention
and its diffusion over Europe are:

1423. Coster of Harlem made the first engraved single page.
1438. Gutenberg invented movable wooden types.
1450. Schoeffer and Faust cast first metal type.