Bringing out the Leaves

Handwriting expresses both individual and cultural identity. In the ninth century, scribes at Charlemagne’s imperial court developed a very clear script, closely related to the forms we use today. “Carolingian miniscule” is highly readable because it has few ligatures (conjoined letters) or abbreviations. Centuries later at the beginning of the Renaissance, humanist scholars read Carolingian books and believed that they had rediscovered original Roman texts. In hopes emulating the great Roman writer Cicero, they reworked Carolingian miniscule into Italian Humanist script.  The adoption of humanist script became, across Europe, a political statement about the embrace of Classical ideals.

1.  Leaf from the Liber Glossarum, ca. 825. Lansburgh 3.
   1. Carolingian miniscule script on vellum.
2. Cicero’s De Officiis, 15^th century. Codex 001911.
    
   1. Italian Humanist script on paper, with 16^th- and 17^th-century marginal notes.
3. Leaf from a Psalter, France, 12^th century. Codex 002487
    
   1. This book of prayers is written in an early variety of Gothic script, called Romanesque. While Carolingian miniscule was easier to read, dense Gothic script saved on production costs, using narrow letters, sharp lines, complicated ligatures (conjoined letters), and numerous abbreviations.
   2. Although still used in the fifteenth century, some humanists found it virtually unreadable. “[Gothic script uses] tiny, compressed little letters that frustrate the eye, heaping and cramming everything together. . . These things the scribe himself can barely read when returning after a brief interval, while the purchaser buys not so much a book, as blindness in the guise of a book.” --Petrarch, Senilium rerum libri (Letters of Old Age), 14^th century

Although traditionally considered revolutionary, print technology in its early years was modest and retrospective. In fact, fifteenth-century printers sought to establish their legitimacy by mimicking manuscripts. These two works exemplify this process. They have many similarities even though one is an Italian manuscript on vellum and the other a German print on paper: both vary between bold, large characters and thin, small characters; both use gothic script (an older letter form) and a combination of blue and red for decorated initials. At a glance, the printed book and the manuscript book are difficult to tell apart.

1. Leaf from The Nuremberg Bible, ninth edition by Antonio Koberger. Nuremberg, Germany, 1483. Rauner Incunabula 150.
   1. Gothic script printed on linen-fiber paper.
2. Passio Sanctorum Martyrum Decem Milium. Northern Italy, 15^th Century. Codex 001967.
   1. Gothic script handwritten on vellum
       

These two books show the close relationship between manuscripts and printed books. Jacobus Rubeus prepared two editions of the same text, one printed on paper and one on vellum. He then sent the vellum version to illuminators, where it was decorated as a manuscript, including marginal foliage.  Marginal notes were also added in a humanist script. The paper copy of the same page also has room for decorations, although they were not completed.  The hybrid form of printed text with hand illustrations, and the use of vellum, remind us that print technology was initially considered an extension of manuscript culture. 

1. Leaf from Historia Florentina by Leonardo Bruni. Venice, Italy, 1476. Lansburgh 36. Printed by Jacobus Rubeus on vellum.
2. Historia Florentina by Leonardo Bruni. Venice, Italy 1476.  Rauner Incunabula 135. Printed by Jacobus Rubeus on paper.

Women and girls played important roles as readers and producers of religious texts. Books of Hours were used by many lay worshippers, but this tiny one seems specifically designed for young aristocratic girl to learn her prayers (it has few abbreviations, for example). Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-80) took childhood learning to remarkable lengths, teaching herself to read and encountering God when she was only six years old. While she did not write about establishing a new role for women within the church, the emancipated life she led made her a model of female intellectual and spiritual capabilities. 

1. Book of Hours. France, 1440. MS 003197.  
2. Leaves from the Légende de la vie de Sainte Catherine by Raymond of Capua. Bruges, ca. 1470. Ms. 470940.

Secular documents also played important roles in the lives of women and girls. In the letter from Elizabeth Carew to her father Nicholas (a renowned member of the British royal court), she describes a dress she would like made for her. In the property settlement issued by Gonzalo de Ocampo, a Spaniard in Peru, he gives several houses to his illegitimate daughter, Maria, in an effort to stabilize her precarious social position. Both documents highlight cultural deference to a father’s authority as well as the power of the written word to intervene on a woman’s behalf.

1. Letter from Elizabeth Carew to her father, Nicholas Carew. Chipping Ongar, Essex, England, January 27, 1590. Lansburgh 29.
2. Grant of property by Gonzalo de Ocampo for his illegitimate daughter Maria. Los Reyes (Lima), Peru, December 14, 1552. Ms. 552664.