First Folio

When looking to recreate something in SL, you need to look at the item as it was. It helps that institutions are beginning to make books of historical available online by scanning them.

Title page from Shakespeare's First Folio	Several libraries have a scanned copy of Shakespeare's first publication of a collection of his work also known as the First Folio published in 1623. The Miami University, University of Victoria, and the University of Pennsylvania all have posted a copy. The Victoria website even allows you to compare more than one copy of First Folio to each other. The Brandeis First Folio versus the New South Wales First Folio. This can be interesting to some because then when a printer found a mistake while printing, he
corrected the error so the books after that would have the correction but the ones with the error would be sold as part of the original run (So a run of 1,000 may have a number corrections incorporated into the run). So you can see how early in the run the book was by how many errors it still had. When you look at the first folio, the words look different but actually they aren't. It's just a case of understanding the spelling	Rosalind in "Shakespeare Illustrated" by Robert Walker Macbeth, 1888
A snippet from "As you Like it". (Right click on it and select "view image" to see it larger.) Take a look at the spellings. At the end of the first line, "loue" is actually "love." On the third line, "ƒhall we part ƒweet girle?" is pronounced "Shall we part sweet girl?" On the eigth line, "griefes your ƒelfe" is "griefs your self". It doesn't take long to adjust once you get used to it and soon it's fairly easy to read it with the right pronunciation.	conventions at the time. "V" was used for the "U" in print. So "us" becomes "vs". If they ran out of a "w" they would use 2 v's as "vv". The "S" can be either an "S" or an elongated "s" which looks like an "ƒ" with a truncated dash. The elongated "s" used to be quite common but disappeared in newspapers in the early 1800s according to Nathan Redshield. Even today, some Shakespearean actors like seeing the original text because it tells them how a word is meant to be pronounced as Ian Thal explained in his blog,

"Something exciting happens when one recites and rehearses Shakespeare's words as they were written by members of the King's Men. The spellings are those of the early 17th century, not those to which we are accustomed to reading in more modern editions (the better of which are incredibly valuable due to all the scholarly notes) but as David pointed out in the first rehearsal, the spellings often provide hints as to where to place emphasis. Indeed, what I have discovered is that by reading the First Folio phonetically, I do not need to think about iambic pentameter-- I hear it as I recite the lines, nor do I have to think about my accent-- the accent is there in the spellings." (Ian Thal)

Shakespeare, stained glass, 1903. Carnegie Library,Vancouver BC photographed by Patrick Burns

There are a few tutorials on the first folio on the internet. Gregory Doran, Chief Associate Artistic Director, Royal Shakespeare Company, gives a talk on video at http://www.rscshakespeare.co.uk/first_movies.html. UPenn gives multimedia slide presentations on different aspects of the first folio at http://dewey.library.upenn.edu/sceti/furness/eric/teach/index.cfm. Reading, speaking and enjoying Shakespeare is a powerpoint on pronunciation, language and acting in Elizabethan England for teens. It does a few definitions but makes a nice simple intro.

Resources
Royal Shakespeare Company


The First Folio of Shakespeare: The Norton Facsimile by William Shakespeare, Charlton Hinman ed. The review by Amazon makes this book sound very cool so I am including it. "Charlton Hinman's facsimile of Shakespeare's First Folio was a colossal achievement when it was first published in 1968, and its reputation is further enhanced by this beautiful second edition. Looking for a way to provide scholars with a reliable version of Shakespeare's text, Hinman invented a device that sped up the collation process, allowing him to compare 82 of the surviving copies of the Folio and bring to light features of Shakespeare's work that have been--and continue to be--edited out of most modern editions. A Midsummer Night's Dream, for example, contains what are known as false starts, fragments of earlier versions of certain speeches. These traces of the composition process survive only because the printers, working directly from Shakespeare's handwritten copy, were not given a chance to thoroughly proofread their work. Though they would make crucial changes during the printing process, it was too wasteful to throw away pages that were already printed. Thus, when they went to bind the Folios, each book contained a fascinating patchwork of corrected and uncorrected copy."

"Also hidden beneath the familiar text of the plays is a portrait of the printers who created the book. Their names remain unknown, but Professor Hinman was able to track individuals' work by examining their spelling habits. Their story is as important to this book as the works of literature that it contains. The many errors the printers introduced into the text of Shakespeare's work still provide fertile ground for theatrical and academic debate. Hamlet, for example, wishes that his "too, too solid flesh would melt."--or is it his "sullied" flesh, or perhaps his "sallied" flesh? Which is Shakespeare, and which is an error? We cannot blame the printers; they spent long hours setting page after page of tiny type, working in a cramped space that smelled strongly of the stale urine they used to soften the inking pads. It is ironic that the most revered symbol of English high culture owes its existence--in part, at least--to the productive bladders of a handful of pressmen. This book gives these men their due, demonstrating the extent to which Shakespeare's plays were the work not just of one man but of a whole society. "

Applause First Folio of Shakespeare in Modern TypeComedies, Histories and Tragedies, 2000.
The First Folio of Shakespeare 1623 by William Shakespeare, Doug Moston, 1995.
The Book of William: How Shakespeare's First Folio Conquered the WorldPaul Collins, 2009.

William Caxton

Caxton Showing the First Specimen of His Printing to King Edward IV at the Almonry, Westminster by Daniel Maclise, 1851.

From Wiki: William Caxton (c. 1415~1422–c. March 1492) was an English merchant, diplomat, writer and printer. As far as is known, he was the first English person to work as a printer and the first to introduce a printing press into England. He was also the first English retailer of printed books (his London contemporaries were all Dutch, German or French).

Game of Chesse, from Jacobus de Cessolis, Westminster, about 1483 (Medieval Woodcuts Clipart Collection)

Sarum Missal, 1487: "This missal is the only surviving copy of the first ever edition of the pre-Reformation English prayer book and contains the first instance of Caxton's use of his publisher's mark as well as being an exceptionally early example of dual-colour printing." The Art Fund, http://www.artfund.org/artwork/10154/missale-ad-usum-sarum-sarum-missal

The full text of 2 of his works are in Gutenberg project. (By the way, this is a really worthy project which is commercial free so please donate to it when you get the chance. Dialogues in French and English. By William Caxton. (Adapted from a Fourteenth-Century Book of Dialogues in French and Flemish.) edited from Caxton's printed text (about 1483), with introduction by Henry Bradley, M.A., Joint-Editor of the New English Dictionary. Caxton's Game and Playe of the Chesse. 1474.

Fig. 11 Woodcut of a King and a Bishop playing chess, illustrated in William Caxton, Game and Playe of the Chesse,(London: Elliot Stock, 1883)viewed on the kostis velonis blog



The Game of Chess was the second book printed in the English language. The first book, also printed by Claxton was The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, also translated from French (of Raoul le Fèvre) and also in 1474. Caxton printed almost 100 books, and of these 20 were translations from French or Dutch into English. The Game of Chess has the second distinction of being the first book to be reprinted! "(The Printing Press)

The State Library of Victoria has a display of images of the woodcuts from the Myrrour of the Worlde in an online exhibit in a flash slideshow.

"Myrrour of the Worlde is one of the first English illustrated books, a translation of L’image du Monde (1464) - which in turn was chiefly derived from the medieval Latin text Imago Mundi. It is an introduction to the history of science, covering: geography, economics, music, cosmography, zoology, meteorology and astronomy. Myrrour of the Worlde ... was produced by England’s first printer, William Caxton (1422–91)."


From Chess Archaelogy, Jacopo da Cessole (Jacobus de Cessolis) was an Italian monk (1) from the Dominican brotherhood.

Books on or by William Caxton

William Caxton and English Literary Culture by N.F. Black, 2003.
Dialogues in French and English by William Caxton, reprinted 2010

16th century books

So books from the 16th century on are considered books and not incunables.  I found a nice site -- they do sell the books but they also show scans of at least a couple pages from each book which is nice.

The Philadelphia Rare Books & Manuscripts Company, LLC  

Here are a few pages from their site.

 

Orlando Furioso

 
 

Same book -- what I think is interesting is those little hands that hold the book open to the page you are reading.  I have never seen that before.

  

 Bible.  Latin. Vulgate. 1513. Biblia cum concordantiis veteris et novi testamenti necnon et iuris canonici. Lugduni: M. Jacobum Sacon, 1513. Folio (34.5 cm, 13.5"). Revised edition, following the first of 1506, of Jerome’s Vulgate as printed by Jacques Sacon for Anton Koberger of Nuremberg. 

 

This is from another Latin Vulgate Bible. 1529.  Textus Biblie. [colophon: Impressum autem Lugduni {i.e.,Lyons}: per Joha[n]nem Crespin, M.ccccc.xxix {1529}].  Look at the little lion under what looks like a little carousel of books.

 

I like this one.  Appropriately, the site titled it the Bear Bible, the first Bible in Spanish. "Reina. 1569.  La Biblia, que es, los sacros libros del vieio y nueuo testamento. [Basel: Thomas Guarinus for or with Samuel Apiarius], 1569."  Interestingly enough, the Spain became staunchly anti-Reformist so bibles had to be printed in Latin (or maybe Hebrew) so the Spanish author, Reina, had to escape to Geneva to avoid prosecution. The next time a Bible was allowed to be printed in Spanish was 300 years later. The site has this bible priced at $28,750. 

 

This is from the first Latin Bible printed in England. "1580. Tremellius–Junius.  Testamenti veteris Biblia Sacra sive libri canonici, priscae Iudaeorum Ecclesiae a Deo traditi, Latini recens ex Hebraeo facti, brevibusque scholiis illustrati ab Immanuele Tremellio & Francisco Iunio.... Londini: Henricus Middletonus, impensis G.B., 1579–80. 4to (21.6 cm, 8.5")".  

 

This is from a book on Julius Caesar in German. I like the intricacy of the woodblock print. "Julius der erst römisch Keiser von seinem Leben und Krieg, erstmals uss dem Latein in Tütsch gebracht vnd mit andrer Ordnung der Capittel und uil zusetz nüw getruckt. [Strassburg: Durch Joannem Grüninger, vff sant Adolffs des heiligen Bischoffss, 1508]. Folio (31 cm; 11.5")"

 

One of the most interesting things on this site is not a book but a single page.  It is a certificate from King Phillip (signed in his name by his sister Juana [Joanna Habsburg] de Austria who was acting regent from 1554-1559) bestowing a coat of arms to Villanueva, one of the Spanish conquistadors who went to the New World with Cortes.  You can see the full page on their C-H page near the bottom. The detail is amazing and they show close up scans of quite a number of them.  It is being sold for $125,000.  

 

These little cherubs sit atop leopards? dragons? at the top of the page.  Whatever they are, I think they are pretty cool looking.

Armariums

Armariums is how they used to store books, scrolls, manuscripts, incuables.  Here are some pics

 

Webpage was in Spanish so I couldn't read the source 

 

 Saint Augustin écrivant à côté d'un armarium (armoire à livres), protégé par un rideau
Livre de prières de Clément VII
Avignon, vers 1378-1383
Avignon, Bibl. mun., ms. 6733, f. 55  

Les manuscrits enluminés  

  

Saint Marc
Heures à l'usage de Rome
Bruges, vers 1510-1525
Rouen, Bibl. mun., ms. 3028 (Leber 142), f. 65 

Les manuscrits enluminés   

Scriptoriums

Scribes in the medeival and early renaissance monastaries copied incunables in Scriptoriums. On this page, I've collected some images from across the web.

 

"This late 15th-century miniature of Jean Miélot (d. 1472)^[1] depicts the author at work: he is shown compiling his Miracles de Nostre Dame, in which this miniature appears." Wikipedia: Scriptorium 

Scriptorium Monk at Work, Blades, William: “Pentateuch of Printing with a Chapter on Judges” (1891)

 

Initial, Rooklooster monk writing in a Scriptorium, 15th c manuscript, Brussel, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 213, fol. 2r 

St Birgitta, Revelationes, 1500, Nuremburg, Anthony Koberger 

"the Chigi Codex (Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Chigi C VIII 234), a lavish manuscript prepared in the scriptorium of Alamire in Brussels/Mechelen soon after Ockeghem’s death in 1497." 

The book fool, Ship of Fools (Das Narrenschiff), by Sebastian Brant, 1497. Gutenberg's Legacy.

Incunable

As wikipedia explains, an incunable "is a book, or even a single sheet of text,[1] that was printed — not handwritten — before the year 1501 in Europe." Some books were printed by carving the words or picture into wood (or other material) and other books were printed by movable type set into an ironframe which was the advent of modern printing. Both types of books are considered incunable. I think the block book (woodcuts) and typographic book (movable type) are very different so it's a little strange to me that the same word can define both books. When I first read the word incunable, I thought they must be intrinsically different like before movable type or something. As wiki explains, the cutoff date of 1500 is a bit arbitrary so it's anything that was printed before then. The Gutenberg Bible is considered an incunable.

From my point of view because I am researching Tudor books for Renaissance Island in Second Life, this is important because since the period stretches from 1457-1603, for the first 50 years books in the Tudor periods would be also defined as incunables and then the last 150 years, they would be considered books.


Armorial Bindings

The Codex Amiatinus

In my last post, I had put up these facts on the Codex Amiatinus

The Codex Amiatinus
Earliest surviving manuscript of the nearly complete Latin Vulgate Bible
75 lbs, 19.25"x13.375", and 7 inches thick
In 692, Ceolfrid commissioned 3 copies of this bible. The monastary got a land grant to raise 2,000 more heads of cattle to produce the vellum (Looks like nonprofits got grants even back then for project:) ). The project for all three was done by 716. That year Ceolfrid died while bringing a finished copy to Rome.

However I noticed there were some other cool images from that book so I decided to put that here. All the images on this page are from the Amiatinus unless otherwise noted.

Saint Paul's church, Jarrow is an excellent site on the Codex

I love this page. Ezra, a prophet, is copying the "Books of the Law" and behind him you can see amarium filled with codices. It gives you an idea of how thick the codices were typically back then as they had to lay the books down rather than stand them up on their spine.To view it at 1475x2052, got to wikicommonsand click the image

Ceolfrid was the Abbot of Wearmouth-Jarrow Abbey. Each of the commissioned copies of the bible had more than 1,000 pages of vellum in them. Vellum isn't paper but rather is a translucent material made from the skin of cattle, camel, deer, pigs and other mammals. It is very durable and can last more than 1,000 years. Think of it as a very fine, translucent page of leather. Nowadays papers you find in art or paper stores that say they are vellum are not but rather are better quality papers made from cotton. Medieval manuscripts and paintings (until the 1500's and advent of canvas) were often done on vellum. So the 2,000 extra cattle that the Ceolfrid had the monastaries raise were for their skin -- but I hope they also enjoyed a feast

because back then there was no refrigeration and I'd hate to think of all that steak going to waste.

Genesis 3:16

Christ in Majesty at the start of the New Testament

Now when we talk about the bible being copied, seven monks who were scribes handcopyied each page in Latin calligraphy. Even back then, whole bibles weren't copied as usually a monastary was likely to just create a copy of the Book of Psalms or the Four Gospels. The seven scribes copied the Codex Grandior, a bible translated from hebrew into Italian by St. Jerome. This is known as the Vulgate Bible. There are a few Apocrypha books

in the Vulgate that is not in the King James version which is the one many people are most familiar with (you know the ones that almost every motel has in their rooms). The books in the Vulgate Bible not in the King James are Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Baruch, 1 Macabees, 2 Macabees, and Sirach. The Internet Sacred Text Archive has a nice feature online so you can see the different texts by the different bibles if you're interested.

Luke iv.32-v.6.

The Codex Grandior was a 6th century codex that is now lost. Likewise, the two copies of the Amiatinus that the monastaries kept for themselves have disappeared. The third one that the now retired Abbot Ceolfrid at age 74 started taking to give to the Pope but he died on the journey at a Burgundy monastary. His companions presented the codex in his name. It is now in the Laurentian Library in Florence.

Interestingly enough the Library did not know it had the Pope's Ceolfrid's bible for a 100 years because the dedication page had been altered. The librarians thought it was an earlier Vulgate bible copied by Servandus in 540AD. Ultraviolet light revealed Ceolfrid's name underneath the name of Peter of Lombard which revealed that it was the 716 text making the text more than 150 years younger but it is still the oldest remaining Vulgate bible unless another one is found. The library has unbound the original to make negatives of each page. The replicas are smaller than the original -- partly because a 75lb book takes a lot of room, not to mention a pain to carry from the shelf to the desk (of course, a CD-Rom is superlight. The La Meta Editore company describe the process of copying the original at http://www.lametaeditore.com/2ing.htm. I don't know why but the images their 2nd page which is on the binding don't load properly but you can see the binding process on the bookbinding page of the Julie of Norwich (a 14th century writer) website.

Resources
Codex Amiatinus

Art of Codex Amiatinus by Rupert Bruce-Mitford, 1967

Bede, Cassiodorus, and The Codex Amiatinus by Paul Meyvaert

Codex Amiatinus and the Byzantine Element in the Northumbrian Renaissance by Per Jonas Nordhagen, 1977

Codex Amiatinus of the Latin Vulgate Bible and Its Birthplace by H. J. White, 2006

Vulgate Bibles

GNT Catholic Bible (Vulgate)
The Holy Bible, Translated from The Latin Vulgate

Other
Scribes, Script, and Books by Leila Avrin, 2010. "This is an encyclopaedic history of the handmade book from antiquity to the Renaissance. It looks at the origins of the book, the development of scripts and styles of illumination, the making of manuscripts, and the technological processes involved." The Codex, of course, gets a mention

The Early Medieval Bible: Its Production, Decoration and UseThe Early Medieval Bible: Its Production, Decoration and Use (Cambridge Studies in Palaeography and Codicology) by Richard Gameson, ed., 2009

Lives Of The First Five Abbots Of Wearmouth & Jarrow: Benedict, Ceolfrid, Eosterwine, Sigfrid, And Huetbert by Ernest Thompson Seton, 2008.

Life of Ceolfrid, Abbot of the Monastery at Wearmouth and Jarrow by D.S. Boutflower, 1991.

The Place of Wearmouth and Jarrow in Western Cultural History by J. D. A. Ogilvy, 1970.

Codices Illustres The World's Most Famous Illuminated Manuscripts 400-1600 by Ingo F, and Norbert Wolf Walther, 2005

Fiction
Vellum by Matt Donovan. It's poetry. I haven't read it but it got five stars on Amazon so I thought I'd add it.