It is around 1450, the invention of movable type printing by Johannes Gutenberg, marks the beginning of a profound intellectual revolution. Adapting an existing technology used, for example, to print images on textiles, Gutenberg introduced movable type printing for the reproduction of alphabetic text. The book, a rare and precious commodity reserved for a few nobles and clerics, quickly becomes a popular media.
For the first time in history, having overcome at a stroke both the obstacle represented by slowness and the problems related to the cost of copying texts by hand, knowledge can be reproduced on a large scale. This allows a wide circulation of ideas, breaking down cultural and linguistic barriers, and contributes to the emergence of a new collective consciousness in Europe.
The printing of the first work, the Bible, makes its wider dissemination possible, with widespread access to reading and thus interpretation. The cultural mediation of the Catholic Church, hitherto unavoidable, is overcome by the possibility of direct enjoyment and interpretation by new readers and religious communities, including Protestant movements.
Luther, aided by the availability of the printed biblical text, affirmed the principle of free examination of the Bible by the faithful. And here the Protestant believer’s need to read the Bible personally also becomes a push for mass literacy.
Protestantism, based on free access to the Bible and individual responsibility, also encourages a spirit of self-discipline and personal initiative that is combined with the work ethic and savings ethic, contributing to the birth of the capitalist spirit, as highlighted by Max Weber.
Defenders of the Catholic tradition try to stop the revolution by putting books on the index and at the stake, but the press becomes an unstoppable engine of the revolution in modern culture.
Italiano