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April 23, 2008
Gutenberg's cows
According to Stephen Fry, or, I suspect, Philip Crocker, the programme researcher, it took 140 calves to make one of Gutenberg’s bibles.
Gutenberg originally proposed to make 180 bibles – that would have been 25,200 calves.
It was one thing inventing the printing press, but they hadn’t invented the freezer by 1440, and there was only so much veal that the good people of Mainz could eat, so they used a newfangled invention from the east - paper.
a photograph of Gutenberg’s printing press [honest]
programme also available on You Tube if the BBC iplayer doesn’t do it for you.
Posted by john at April 23, 2008 11:47 AM