Renaissance historian Boris von Brauchitsch writes:
“Whereas 45 scribes had once required 22 months to copy 200 books for Cosimo de’ Medici, the two German priests who set up Italy’s first printing press in the Benedictine cloister of Subiaco in 1465 were able to turn out 12,000 volumes in only five years.”
(Brauchitsch, Boris von. Renaissance: An Illustrated Historical Overview. Translated from the German by Sally Schreiber. Barron’s, 2000, p. 15)
So:
Conclusion: The 1465 printing press was 500 times more productive than transcription by scribes.
Implications: Cost of books to consumers? Loss of jobs by scribes? Number of jobs created in the printing industry? Quality of books produced? Number of books published? Profits to publishers?
Source: Table by Stephen R. C. Hicks based on data in Brauchitsch, Boris von. Renaissance: An Illustrated Historical Overview. Translated from the German by Sally Schreiber. Barron’s, 2000, p. 15)