Physical alterations made the manuscript more attractive, more useful, more modern, and more personal. Leaves added to manuscripts reveal owners’ strong desires, even if that desire was simply to leave a mark. And a stationer could simply add an image to the front of the quire. As long as books were constructed according to the modular method, then new texts automatically started at the beginning of a fresh quire on the recto side. Placed as a verso the image could thereby mark the beginning of key text passages. A stationer or book owner could slip such full-page miniatures into the book so that they prefaced major incipits, so long as each new text began on a fresh recto with an enlarged initial. After the 1390s many miniatures, which were made primarily for books of hours, were produced separately from the textual components of the manuscript. I have discussed this above in conjunction with a new way of conceptualizing book production that divided labor physically, resulting in manuscripts that were pieced together in such a way that the seams often showed quite clearly. Of course, there was an entire industry for the production of single-leaf miniatures. Single leaves were the simplest additions. It provided more substrate for texts and images. Most of this ancillary physical material came in the form of parchment. Yet the rest of the additions discussed in this study require adding physical material in such a way that it became structurally integrated with the original book. Every doodle, and most notes of ownership inscribed into the fronts (or backs) of books comprise additions of this sort.
Owners and users simply made use of the blank and available space, and filled it with desired words and images.
Some augmentations did not require a medieval book owner to take the book apart. Senior Lecturer in Art History and Medieval Studiesįrom Piety in Pieces: How Medieval Readers Customized their Manuscripts Introduction
Leiden, University Library, BPL MS 2778, photo: Giulio Menna
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