<P> In Italy, a center of early printing, print shops had been established in 77 cities and towns by 1500 . At the end of the following century, 151 locations in Italy had seen at one time printing activities, with a total of nearly three thousand printers known to be active . Despite this proliferation, printing centres soon emerged; thus, one third of the Italian printers published in Venice . </P> <P> By 1500, the printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than twenty million copies . In the following century, their output rose tenfold to an estimated 150 to 200 million copies . </P> <P> European printing presses of around 1600 were capable of producing about 1,500 impressions per workday . By comparison, book printing in East Asia did not use presses and was solely done by block printing . </P> <P> Of Erasmus's work, at least 750,000 copies were sold during his lifetime alone (1469--1536). In the early days of the Reformation, the revolutionary potential of bulk printing took princes and papacy alike by surprise . In the period from 1518 to 1524, the publication of books in Germany alone skyrocketed sevenfold; between 1518 and 1520, Luther's tracts were distributed in 300,000 printed copies . </P>

What is the printing press in the renaissance