National Palace Museum – Books 古書

I am no bookworm, but I do enjoy looking at antique books. Which makes me wonder. If the Chinese invented paper, who invented the printing press?

The National Palace Museum houses a collection of over 214,500 rare and antiquarian books, and its core is made up of print editions, volumes executed in movable type, imprints annotated by renowned scholars, old manuscripts, and delicately copied volumes, spanning the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties.

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The earliest known form of printing as applied to paper was woodblock printing, which appeared in China before 220 AD for cloth printing. However, it would not be applied to paper until the seventh century. Later developments in printing technology include the movable type invented by Bi Sheng around 1040 AD and the printing press invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century.

The Tianlu Linlang Library 天祿琳瑯叢書 of Rare Books

The first series of the Siku Quanshu, completed towards the end of the 46th year of the Qianlong reign (1782), was deposited in the Wenyuan Pavilion. The complete Siku Quanshu collection comprises 36,381 volumes in 6,144 cases. Its refined brushwork, meticulous editing, and elegant binding and decoration make it the most celebrated collection of rare books in the National Palace Museum.

When the Manchus came to rule over China, the new dynasty also took over the entire court library left by the defeated Ming and expanded the collections. Compilations of imperial writings and various other works were commissioned by imperial order, and great effort was put into actively acquiring books, which were for the emperor’s eyes only.

The Tianlu Linlang Library 天祿琳瑯書目 was a collection of rare books assembled by the Qianlong emperor. Comprising titles from the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties, it was preserved in the library at the Zhaoren Hall (originally the Kangxi emperor’s study). Emperor Qianlong turned the hall into a library housing rare books as a way to commemorate his grandfather and named it after the Han dynasty Tianlu Pavilion, China’s first imperial library.

Back to the question. A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. That used a typeset technique and was invented by Gothenburg.