Special Collections Visit
The three-hundred and ninety-five-page book that I surveyed, titled Della Espositione Sopra L’orlando, was published June, 1550 (originally written in roman numerals MDL) by a person named Lorenzo Torrentino. A person by the initials of “U.R.S” was the author and the colophons, mentioned the printer’s name, “DV Cale”. This book was written in purely Italian and was paginated, and its size was fairly small, identifying it as an octavo. The title page included the decorative mark of the printer, depicting an illustration of two angel children holding up a crown, and the binding had small gold imprints on the leather that no longer formed a recognizable pattern. Inside the book itself there were a lot of handwritten marginalia, …show more content…
Seeing the owner of my book reference other works of literature through the written marginalia elucidated that the owner was reading not only this book, but many books at once. Due to the mass availability of books, readers were no longer believing everything they read and the refinement of ideas was in its early stages. This is different from what would happen before the mass production of print, when books weren’t readily available so oftentimes the owner of a book would read it repeatedly, being mesmerized by the concepts it holds, but unaware of contrasting opinions. The author took their time to write references in because the printer did not. However, these marginalia are not only references, but pieces of the owner’s mind, and questions for the reader to think about. The printed book is less personal and more about mass production and profit, therefore it won’t have some personally written marginalia by the author, but instead a standardized copy of the text ( and sometimes printed marginalia) and nothing else. This is relatable to Eisenstein’s argument of books no longer being ritual objects, unlike books produced via monastic scriptorium. The absence of the discussion and commentary that was previously written around the writing, as seen in scribal culture, is what elongates the continuity of the scriptoria tradition of commentary and discussion through margins. Although the book itself has less value because it is a copy unlike a handwritten parchment, the marginalia by the owner imbues the idea of writing down opinions, thoughts, and interpretations, similar to monks who would comment their interpretations on bible translations in the form of a block around the writing, showing continuity of an old
The three-hundred and ninety-five-page book that I surveyed, titled Della Espositione Sopra L’orlando, was published June, 1550 (originally written in roman numerals MDL) by a person named Lorenzo Torrentino. A person by the initials of “U.R.S” was the author and the colophons, mentioned the printer’s name, “DV Cale”. This book was written in purely Italian and was paginated, and its size was fairly small, identifying it as an octavo. The title page included the decorative mark of the printer, depicting an illustration of two angel children holding up a crown, and the binding had small gold imprints on the leather that no longer formed a recognizable pattern. Inside the book itself there were a lot of handwritten marginalia, …show more content…
Seeing the owner of my book reference other works of literature through the written marginalia elucidated that the owner was reading not only this book, but many books at once. Due to the mass availability of books, readers were no longer believing everything they read and the refinement of ideas was in its early stages. This is different from what would happen before the mass production of print, when books weren’t readily available so oftentimes the owner of a book would read it repeatedly, being mesmerized by the concepts it holds, but unaware of contrasting opinions. The author took their time to write references in because the printer did not. However, these marginalia are not only references, but pieces of the owner’s mind, and questions for the reader to think about. The printed book is less personal and more about mass production and profit, therefore it won’t have some personally written marginalia by the author, but instead a standardized copy of the text ( and sometimes printed marginalia) and nothing else. This is relatable to Eisenstein’s argument of books no longer being ritual objects, unlike books produced via monastic scriptorium. The absence of the discussion and commentary that was previously written around the writing, as seen in scribal culture, is what elongates the continuity of the scriptoria tradition of commentary and discussion through margins. Although the book itself has less value because it is a copy unlike a handwritten parchment, the marginalia by the owner imbues the idea of writing down opinions, thoughts, and interpretations, similar to monks who would comment their interpretations on bible translations in the form of a block around the writing, showing continuity of an old