0:00 The air in the workshop tasted of metal.0:03 A sharp, bitter tang of lead and tin that coated the back of my throat.0:09 Last week, we stood in the dust of an ancient Egyptian tomb, listening to the whispers of forgotten workers.0:19 Today, we are in a different kind of sealed chamber, in Mainz, Germany, around the year fourteen fifty, where the only secret is the one we are trying to create.0:34 My name is Peter Schoeffer.0:36 And I was once a scribe.0:38 My hands were made for the delicate curve of a letter, for the patient application of gold leaf.0:47 Now, they are calloused and stained black with an ink of our own design—a thick, oily concoction of soot and varnish.0:57 The master, Johannes Gutenberg, is a man possessed.1:02 He doesn't see the filth, the exhaustion.1:06 He only sees his vision.1:08 A Bible.1:08 Not written by one man over a year, but by a machine, a hundred times over.1:15 Our financier, Johann Fust, visits every day.1:19 He walks through the grime, his fine boots stepping around piles of discarded metal slugs, and he doesn’t see a workshop.1:30 He sees a hole that he has poured two fortunes into.1:35 His questions are always the same.1:38 When?1:38 How soon?1:39 And Gutenberg—Gutenberg just waves a hand, muttering about the alloy.1:45 The lead is too soft, the antimony too brittle.1:49 We have spent weeks casting and re-casting tiny metal letters, each one a mirror image of perfection, only to see them crumble or blur after a dozen impressions.2:04 The work is endless.2:06 Carve the punch.2:07 Strike the matrix.2:09 Cast the type.2:10 Set the line.2:11 All in secret.2:12 Because if the scribes’ guild found out we were trying to replace them, they would ruin us.2:20 If the Church found out we were printing holy words with a machine… they would burn us.2:28 Then, one afternoon, the master went quiet.2:32 He had been staring at the press for an hour.2:36 He adjusted a screw by a hair's breadth.2:40 He wiped a single speck of dust from the platen.2:44 He looked at me, his eyes wild.2:47 "Peter," he said, his voice a low rasp.2:50 "The ink.2:51 The new batch." I brought it.2:54 He worked it onto the metal letters with a leather ball, his movements suddenly precise, almost delicate.3:03 He laid the sheet of rag paper himself.3:07 He took a deep breath… and pulled the lever.3:11 The machine groaned.3:12 A heavy, wooden sound that seemed to suck all the air out of the room.3:19 Then, silence.3:20 Gutenberg didn’t move.3:22 He just stood there, his hand still on the press arm.3:27 I held my breath.3:28 Was it another failure?3:30 Another pile of expensive paper ruined?3:34 He slowly, so slowly, raised the frame.3:37 And there it was.3:39 A column of text.3:40 The letters were crisp.3:42 The ink was a perfect, uniform black.3:46 Every line was straight.3:48 Every word was clear.3:50 It wasn’t the work of a hand.3:52 It was too… perfect.3:54 Gutenberg let out a sound, a half-sob, half-laugh.3:59 He snatched the page and held it to the light, his hands trembling.4:05 I looked down at my own stained fingers.4:08 I had mixed that ink.4:10 I had helped cast those letters.4:13 I had abandoned the art of the handwritten word, an art I loved.4:19 But as I looked at that page, I realized I hadn't destroyed beauty.4:25 I had helped make it eternal.4:27 And it was about to be released into the world.
