<P> Gutenberg is also credited with the introduction of an oil - based ink which was more durable than the previously used water - based inks . As printing material he used both paper and vellum (high - quality parchment). In the Gutenberg Bible, Gutenberg made a trial of coloured printing for a few of the page headings, present only in some copies . A later work, the Mainz Psalter of 1453, presumably designed by Gutenberg but published under the imprint of his successors Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer, had elaborate red and blue printed initials . </P> <P> The Printing Revolution occurred when the spread of the printing press facilitated the wide circulation of information and ideas, acting as an "agent of change" through the societies that it reached . (Eisenstein (1980)) </P> <P> The invention of mechanical movable type printing led to a huge increase of printing activities across Europe within only a few decades . From a single print shop in Mainz, Germany, printing had spread to no less than around 270 cities in Central, Western and Eastern Europe by the end of the 15th century . As early as 1480, there were printers active in 110 different places in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, England, Bohemia and Poland . From that time on, it is assumed that "the printed book was in universal use in Europe". </P> <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>

Where did the first mass printing of books occur