Around 1457, following the pioneering printing of his 42-Line Bible, Johannes Gutenberg and his associates worked on printing the 'Catholicon', a massive 13th-century Latin dictionary and grammar compilation attributed to John Balbi of Genoa. This period marked a critical transition where moveable type technology moved beyond purely liturgical texts into standard educational and reference materials. The stabilization of printing techniques during these years allowed for the mass standardization of language tools across Europe. This quiet technological revolution laid the groundwork for widespread literacy outside of monastic scriptoriums.

The printing of comprehensive grammatical texts like the Catholicon standardized Latin orthography and syntax across Europe, giving poets a uniform linguistic framework. By making dictionaries widely accessible, typography democratized the tools of composition, enabling a broader class of secular writers to study classical poetic meters. This linguistic stabilization was vital for the explosion of humanist poetry and text editing in the late 15th century.