3 ms·

Very interesting. I wonder about the relationship between the advent of the Gutenberg press and the Inquisition which began shortly after.

• vinceguidry 11y ago
  The Inquisition was not one thing that started at one time. The pope had charged cardinals with convening councils called inquisitions to combat heresy since the 12th century. They were initially not the violent affairs we think of today. I have yet to really study the Spanish Inquisition in detail, which is what you appear to be referring to, as it was convened some twenty years after the first Gutenberg was published, but I doubt the it had much to do with it. The Gutenberg took a hundred years to wreak its particular havoc in the form of the Reformation. It was Martin Luther himself who had translated the Bible into German.
  • laotzu 11y ago
    While the printing press helped spread the bible, it also helped spread around revolutionary ideas like Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres which greatly influenced thinkers like Giordano Bruno, who in turn printed and published works on the matter, ultimately leading to his execution at the stake by the Inquisition.