Selected Topics
in History of Science
Machines and science: 14th
and 15th
century
DE2B03 Lecture 5
13 March 2023
Prague astronomical clock (courtesy Ant. Vrba)
Prague astronomical clock: the whole
Calendarium: pictorial represenation (Oct.)
Dates and astrolabium
New design - astrolabium
Positions of the clock hands on the clock face
What time is it?
European horologia
Padua, 1344 (1571)
(Jacopo de‘Dondi)
Missing: the sign Libra in the Zodiac
(perhaps he was not paid enough?)
Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1400- 1468)
the invention of the printing press
Gutenberg:
statue in Mainz
Mainz: map
Mainz (Mohuč)

Roman origins of the town:

Römersteine

(Roman stones)

- Remnants of a Roman
aqueduct, northmost from Rome

Römisches Theater

Roman theatre

(10 thousand people)

Discovered 1914-1916
Mainz (Mohuč) up to Gutenberg‘s lifetime

Port on Rhine

Opposite Wiesbaden

- Celtic settlement

- Romans: 14-9 BC,

until 451 AD

1244 –free imperial city

„Golden Mainz“, Center of Rhenish
towns

14th century – archbishops of M.
chancellors and electors of Holy
Roman E.

1440- book printing

1460s – economic decline, citizens
deprived of privileges
Johannes
Gutenberg

Born:

Between 1394 and 1404

Johannes Night:

24 June

(summer solstice)

Arbitrary day of birth:

24 June 1400
Johannes
de Altavilla
(Eltville)

studied in Erfurt

Was it the same person?

(no portrait of him from his time
is preserved, anyway)

Father died 1418

Mother died 1433

Strassbourg

Holland:

wooden block printing?

Not durable
Book by
Diana Childress
(Twenty-First Century
Books, MN, 2008)

Interesting:

American perspective

What do we need to explain?

Where Germany is

The notion of Central Europe

(universities: Charles U.)

Pilgrimage badges

(tourist bumpers)
Medieval scribes (monasteries)
Paper- making: handmade paper
Printing

Vellum

Durable, reusable material

Stamping – known

How else / Where else do we press?

Wine press

Oil press

Did he also invent punch-matrix system for casting
metal type?
Artist‘s interpretation: first prints by JG
What would you print, if you lived then?
Upper Case and Lower Case
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Johannes-Gutenberg/images-videos
and a demonstration of the operation, live:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLctAw4JZXE