Assignment 1. Transitions in media: Manuscript to Print.
Spring 1999, Mary Kay Duggan

Choose a genre on the list of examples. For that genre should be listed one or more manuscripts and early printed books. Examine one of each and describe the following categories for both the manuscript and the early printed book:

content (author and title [perhaps more than one]

genre: contemporary? classical? prayer book? school book?

material (vellum, paper)

size (format if paper)

number of leaves, organization in quires (numbered leaves? signed quires? regular?)

organization (chapters, titlepage, index, etc.)

layout (pricking and ruling for manuscript if visible; number of columns, lines; relationship of margins to text, running heads, illustrations)

function of color

script/type (gothic, textura, bastarda, humanistic, italic, a mixture [did many people write the manuscript?], transitional; number of sizes or styles)

illustration or decoration (illumination, rubrication, highlighting, woodcut, engraved, pen and ink)

binding

reader/owner (what do you know? what can you guess?)

Compare the two books. Did the printer try to imitate the manuscript? If so, was he successful? Did he try innovations? Describe. What are the positive and negative aspects of each book; are they peculiar to their medium? How do these books fit into such larger issues as of national power (national languages), religious change, growth of literacy, humanism in the higher education curriculum?

If you like, you may continue the comparison to the next century. It is likely true that by 1550 the genre will have been quite transformed by printing in ways both positive and negative.

See me for bibliography pertinent to your genre.

The written (printed? typed?) assignment should not be long (3 to 5 pages; bibliography, illustrations) and you should be prepared to make a 5-10 minute presentation on your books in class.