Histoire de l’origine et des prémiers progrès de l’imprimerie (The Hague: Pieter Paupie)

'Histoire de l'origine de l'imprimerie' by Prosper Marchand, 1740. It can be seen on a cloud there is a personification of printing with a printing press. He is flanked by Minerva and Mercury, the gods of wisdom and dissemination with the Enlightenment idealism of Marchand’s emblem is at the heart of a longstanding. Among them are personifications of Germany, Holland, England, Italy, and France. They carry portraits of people essential to the printing press: Imprenta, Johannes Gutenberg, Aldus Manutius, Laurens Janszoon Coster, and Jacob van der Schley. The long reach of print led to unprecedented levels of standardization, cultural memory, and cross-cultural interchange. It helped spread literacy, provided ordinary people with access to various information sources, and gave permanency to radical ideas that challenged conventional knowledge. As a result, the new technology, the printed media, has made fundamental political and theological transformations. Reformers who questioned power made some of the most stunning uses of the early printing press.