It’s been a fun and interesting ride. I’ve met amazing people on the journey and seen amazing sites. This week was the start of a new side adventure as we made our way into a small town outside of Verona. It was nice to see a town with its bustling community and wonderful scenery, but the best part was the beginning of the evening. We were actually able to see the workings of typography. This showed the process of printing, which hadn’t been achieved for quite some time. This was mainly done before printers at home and with the use of a computer. Back then, it was Gutenberg’s bible that was the main part of history showing the first printing press at work. This bible, which is also present at UT, was a show of how history has changed and how difficult it was to create and invent during that time. An interesting video we watched was the actual creation of sheet music. It was quite a feat. Not only did they have to slowly use a pin to push out patterns on a sheet of metal, but then they needed to fill it with ink and make sure that ink was in every piece of the music. This was a hard and long process that didn’t allow any mistakes. A person could literally create the whole music sheet, but if they messed up the last page, then they needed to start over. Another interesting part was how it was all done by hand. Each of these sheets of music didn’t require a robot and instead required a skilled worker to shape and work with the metal. It was amazing to see a video of this long and tedious process and wonder how they could accomplish such a feat for long works of music.
Then afterwards, we were able to see the printing process in action. This was crazy as we picked out each individual letter and had to make sure that it lined up exactly. Then, in order to get the right color of ink, ink needed to be mixed together and placed directly on a metal cylinder. This process took quite a bit of time as they laid layers on the metal and slowly wheeled it across the letter’s surface. I had never seen this process and finally being able to see a master at their craft gave me a greater appreciation for older books that were printed in the masses through this process of lining up letters. It was even difficult to work with a typewriter during this time. Laying the letters down and working with the material was a hard matter. I really felt this experience was worthwhile and can’t wait to show my family the canvas that was created right in front of me.