The rise of print culture was one of the most significant developments in early modern Europe. It transformed the ways in which knowledge was produced, preserved, circulated and consumed, and played an important role in the transition from medieval to modern society. Print culture emerged from the interaction of technological innovation, expanding literacy, commercial growth, religious changes, political developments and the increasing demand for books and other printed materials. The invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century, particularly the movable-type press associated with Johannes Gutenberg, provided the technological foundation for this transformation. Before the emergence of printing, books in Europe were mainly produced by hand. Manuscript production was largely concentrated in monasteries and later in urban workshops. Copying a book was a slow, expensive and labour-intensive process. Manuscripts were therefore relatively scarce and were mainly accessible to religious institutions, universities, rulers and wealthy individuals. The spread of universities and the growth of urban society during the later Middle Ages had already created a greater demand for books, but manuscript production could not meet this demand easily. The development of printing technology provided a solution to this problem. Johannes Gutenberg's printing press, developed around the middle of the fifteenth century in Mainz, was particularly important because it combined movable metal type, oil-based ink and a press mechanism capable of producing large numbers of relatively identical copies. Printing itself had existed in various forms in Asia before Gutenberg, but the European printing press had a profound and rapid impact because it could be integrated with the existing commercial and intellectual networks of European cities. The first major printed books included religious texts, especially editions of the Bible, but printers soon produced a wide variety of secular and scholarly works. The printing revolution spread rapidly across Europe. Printing presses were established in major urban centres such as Venice, Paris, Antwerp, London, Basel, Leipzig and Amsterdam. By the end of the fifteenth century, numerous European towns had printing establishments. Venice became one of the most important centres of the European book trade. The growth of printing was closely connected with the expansion of commerce and the rise of a prosperous urban middle class. Printers, publishers, booksellers and paper manufacturers became part of an increasingly commercial literary economy. The expansion of print culture was also closely associated with the Renaissance. Renaissance humanists developed a strong interest in recovering, editing and circulating classical Greek and Roman texts. Printing made it possible to reproduce these works in larger quantities and with greater textual uniformity. Scholars could compare different editions, correct errors and disseminate their interpretations to a wider intellectual community. The works of classical authors as well as contemporary humanists such as Erasmus circulated widely through print. Thus, printing helped create an interconnected European republic of letters in which scholars could communicate beyond geographical boundaries. Print culture also contributed to the spread of vernacular languages. During the medieval period, Latin had been the dominant language of scholarship, theology and administration. With the expansion of printing, however, books increasingly appeared in languages such as English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. Printing helped standardize spelling, vocabulary and grammar because large numbers of readers encountered similar forms of written language. It also strengthened