In the early fifteenth century, the art of the wood-cutter and engraver had advanced sufficiently to allow some books to be printed in this manner, _i.e._ from carved blocks.

This was usually, or at first, done only with books in which a small amount of text went with a large amount of illustration.

There are extant, for example, six editions of the _Biblia Pauperum_, stamped by this method.

It was afterwards applied, chiefly in Holland, to a few other books for which there was a large demand, the Latin grammar of Donatus, for example, and a guide-book to Rome known as the _Mirabilia Urbis Romae_.

But at best this method was extremely unsatisfactory; the blocks soon wore out, the text was blurred and difficult to read, the initial expense was large.
The essential feature of Gutenberg's invention was therefore not, as the name implies, printing, or impression, but typography, or the use of type.