The Dawn of Printing in Rome and the One-pull Press. Story of an Uncertainty

Abstract

The invention of movable type printing was followed by a fundamental technical development, which influenced the way in which a text was produced: the replacement of the original one-pull press with the two-pull press, which made it possible to print two pages at a time with a single pull of the press. Lotte Hellinga, following a survey of quarto format editions printed in printing shops in various locations, suggests that the first occurrence of the new technology is to be attributed to the beginning of 1472 and to Georg Lauer's printing shop in Rome. Following some reflections that take Hellinga's study as a point of departure, other parameters are described that allow to establish which printing press was used in the production of a certain edition. Once the methodology applied in the analysis of incunabula printed in Rome has been described, four cases are illustrated, which highlight the complexity of the topic.