Growth of the Printing Industry

The ability to mass-produce the written word would revolutionize the spread of information, and in many ways early modern society as a whole. Pioneered by Renaissance men such as Venetian Printer Aldus Manutius, the new art helped fuel the Renaissance by making the translated classics more widely available. Later the Reformation benefitted greatly from the ability to spread critical publications and translations of the Holy Scriptures.\n\nNow that Printing has matured as a technique and spread throughout, hundreds of thousands of copies of everything from religious and political pamphlets to scientific treatises and instructions on how to behave are circulating the continent. With print shops growing evermore commonplace, rulers have found it hard to contain the new technique, as the comparatively easy means of production makes it easy for censorship to be sidestepped by moving business across a border or even just changing the name on a title page.