Museum of books and printing

On Tuesday morning we made the journey to the museum of books and printing. There, we were greeted by a jovial Frenchmen who was very knowledgeable and passionate on the subject matter. This made the tour evermore enjoyable even in the intense heat. During the tour we were firstly introduced to the architecture of the district thought history. The mysterious passageways that cut from one side of the home to the opposite, as well as width of the roads and the general look of the buildings.

Our tour included a detailed oration on Gutenburg and the history of the development on the first printing presses. Some of the earliest printing presses would use plates with an entire page of text. Later movable type was used to decrease the time needed to print a single page, and the individual letters could be reused over and over. These individual letters were housed in a box with several compartments. Capital letters were in the upper case and the small letters were kept in the lower case, hence the upper and lower case letters. It is interesting learning the origins of our everyday phrases.