Bookmaking required a significant material investment. Each of these elements conditioned a reader’s interaction with the book. In the illuminated manuscript, it is often impossible to distinguish neatly between text and image rather, letters assume imagistic forms and images take the form of letters.īookmakers were sensitive to the interplay of materials, from the parchment of the pages to the wooden boards, designed to protect the contents. Codices were tactile as well as visual objects designed to engage multiple senses. Throughout the Middle Ages there existed an intimate relationship between making and meaning. Using a wide variety of examples from the collections of Harvard’s Houghton Library, it will familiarize you with basic terms and concepts and give you a “feel” for the shapes, sizes, formats, materials and considerations of craft that went into the making of the book as we know it. This module is designed to walk you through the process of making a medieval manuscript. This module of The Book: Histories Across Time and Space seeks to re-introduce learners to the codex – a handwritten and hand-constructed book - as a three-dimensional object whose characteristics produce meaning in the experience of the reader. However, we should also consider what is lost as texts transition to a digital sphere. As books “go digital,” we can appreciate what is gained in terms of convenience, accessibility and interconnectedness.
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