DEVELOPMENT OF THE CRNOJEVIC PRINTING MACHINE REPLICA

The Crnojević printing machine is the first printing machine in the Balkans. It was installed in Cetinje in 1492, just 40 years after the first printing machine in the world – Gutenberg’s printing press. It operated within the Crnojević Printing Press, the first state printing press in the world and the first printing press in the language of the South Slavic peoples and in the Cyrillic script. The Crnojević Printing Press is the first printing press in the Balkans where books are printed serially, so many associate the appearance of this machine with the beginning of techniques and technology and serial production in this region.. This paper presents a project to create a replica of the Crnojević printing press, which was designed and created by a team from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Podgorica, commissioned by the Ministry of Economic Development and Culture of Montenegro. The Project aimed to design the printing machine and define its functionality and operating principle. The replica is exhibited in the State Museum of Montenegro – Biljarda in Cetinje and is fully functional for printing, according to the methodology used in the fifteenth century.