Readers go to books, not books to readers. This example of a medieval treatise, surrounded by a gloss bristling with abbreviations, is taken from a manuscript copy on vellum of Aristotle's Physica (c. 1300).

Censorship

With the dissemination of text through printing came the necessity to control it. The Roman Catholic "Index of Prohibited Books" (Index librorum prohibitorum, Rome, 1559) was hardly the first example of such efforts, only the most notorious. This page shows "Authors, all of whose books and writings are prohibited", and lists their given names under the initial "M". This particular page includes a manuscript cross-reference to "N" for "Niccolo" Macchiavelli. Also included on this page are Marsilius of Padua, Martin Bucer, and "Martinus Lutherus" (with the added manuscript notation, heresiarchus).

Propaganda

Printing opened unforeseen possibilities for what we would now call "propaganda." In this image, three devils perch on a gallows, one of whom is relieving himself by excreting a vast pile of monks onto the ground. The verses that accompanied this picture explain the scene: once upon a time the Devil had begun to suffer severe abdominal pains, 'as if he were pregnant'. Climbing onto a gallows, he strained and strained until he had relieved himself of his discomfort. Observing the results of his efforts, the Devil remarked that it was no wonder he had suffered so much; such crafty knaves as monks were worse than he and all his fellow demons; should ever they gather in his kingdom, the Devil himself would be expelled. Instead, the Devil saw to it that monks were scattered throughout the world.

Comparison

Some scholars argue that printing technology, by encouraging more rational and systematic organization of knowledge, indirectly encouraged cultural comparison. Between 1500 and 1800, for example, more than seventy Hebrew dictionaries were produced. Meanwhile, polyglot bibles promoted comparative textual analysis. These pages, showing the beginning of Genesis in Hebrew, Chaldaic, Greek and Latin, come from Christopher Plantin's Antwerp polyglot: Biblia Sacra, Hebraice, Chaldaice, Graece & Latine (Antwerp 1571).

Standardization

The mass production of text through printing tended to standardize language...and sometimes mass produce errors in the process. This is a detail from the so-called "Wicked Bible" of 1631, showing a typographically erroneous commandment.

Standardization also enabled the formation of new cultural practices, such as "fashion": books for dressmakers and tailors published in sixteenth-century Seville made "Spanish" fashions visible throughout Europe. This pattern comes from Diego de Freyle, Geometrica y traca para el oficio de los sastres (Seville, 1588).