The evolution or evolution of the book. From skin to machines

For more than 2,000 years, animal skins have been used to make books in Africa, Europe and America. But it was in Pergamum (today's Turkey) that the technique was really perfected. The king of Pergamum decreed that cattle skin be used as a support for writing. And so the parchment was born.

The skins were macerated in calcium or river water. Then they gave off a suffocating smell, although the spankers, accustomed to their work, should no longer perceive it. They wet, scratched and scraped the outer part of the skin to leave it hairless. Then they fixed it, still wet, on a wooden frame and let it dry in the sun before degreasing the inner layer.

They arranged the skin on a thin sheet and bleached it with chalk or calcium, so that the parchment was ready so that it could be written on it. Then the prepared calf and calf skins were glued together to form curls similar to papyri. But unlike the papyrus, the parchment had the ability to bend to form a book.

They created scrolls with various skins: lamb and calf (in Pergamum), mink (North America), deer or deer (Central America), etc. The best scrolls were those of vellum: the thin, smooth skin of dead lambs at birth. To give you an idea: it takes about 12 lamb skins to make a book of 150 pages of 16 x 23 cm.

The Indians used berry paste to paint red, or cooked duck droppings to paint blue on the skins. Later, among the calm of the monasteries, the monks of the Middle Ages extracted the colors of vegetables and insects: the black ink was sometimes obtained from a mineral, and sometimes, from some protuberances that produced some parasites in the plants. The yellow ink, of the gualda; and red, cinnabar, a reddish mineral.

During the Middle Ages the task of the monks was arduous: they considered that they had received the legacy of philosophers, sages and poets, and that they should be at the service of transcribing these works and keeping them. So the scriptorium was set up, authentic workshops where thick manuscript books were copied by hand, word by word.

How could you copy so many books without having to make them by hand? Do not believe that the discovery is a thing of one. Like many great inventions, the printing press is preceded by previous works that prepared the ground well: from the 8th century in Asia and from the 15th century in Europe, texts were recorded on wooden boards. Ink was applied to them and they were pressed against the paper: thus the xylographic books appeared. Although you still had to create an iron for each page, and also the wood wears quickly.

J. Gutenberg completed the invention. Instead of using a wood with all the letters on the page, he invented mobile metal letters. Each letter is in relief and vice versa, and they are all of the same size. This way they can be arranged next to each other well inked so that they leave their mark.

Actually, Gutenberg used all his money for these investigations, so much that he had to try hard to continue. He asked for a loan that he could not repay, so his workshop passed into the hands of his son-in-law. So much effort ... and without knowing that the Koreans had already invented this process 50 years before!

For five centuries the pages of the books have thus been composed, until the engine rooms began to accelerate the speed of the printing press. In the 19th century, the first press with steam-driven mechanical gears was launched. Thus, little by little one goes from making books with flat pressure elements (plates, metallic characters ...) to cylindrical pressure elements, some rolls that rotate on themselves and create pages at full speed.

The possibilities skyrocket!