jan 1, 1440 - Gutenberg Invents The Printing Press

Description:

St. Jerome in His Study (Durer, 1514)

The development of the printing press meant artists could now sell copies of their prints in the mass market, patronage was thus no longer the exclusive path available to an artist. Common people benefited too, they could buy cheap copies of such prints, allowing them for the first time to own such exquisite pieces of art. Religious upheaval would strike Europe a few years after the creation of this print as Martin Luther would call upon Christians to form a personal connection with God by reading for themselves the Bible which was for the first time available to the common man, thanks to Gutenberg’s inventions. Durer, who would become an impassioned Lutheran(2), could not have predicted this but in that St. Jerome took the first step towards making the Bible accessible to the common man by translating it into Vulgate Latin, the engraving is an apt piece for a time that marked the greatest leap forward in the democratization of art, religion and society seen until then.

2. Edward Maslin Hulme, Renaissance and Reformation, (New York, The Century Company, 1915), 393.