September 24, 2020 – The Aldine Edition of Plato's Works
Dublin Core
Title
September 24, 2020 – The Aldine Edition of Plato's Works
Subject
Tufts University. Tisch Library. Special Collections
Description
How was it put together? Is everything there? Questions for anyone who studies an early printed book, even an online digital copy. If you like puzzles, early printed books may be for you.
Over centuries of use, misuse, vandalism, repair, and re-binding, leaves can go missing. The book may have been bound out of order to begin with. Binders, who often could not read the texts, followed letters and numbers on the fronts of the first half of every gathering of leaves (quire), called signatures. A quire of eight leaves may have signatures A Aii Aiii Aiiii, and then four with no marks. Page numbers were uncommon before 1600. Page numbers and signature order do not always match (put your money on the signatures).
A register, printed at the end of some books, indicates the order in which the binder should assemble the quires. The first photo shows the register for the two-volume work in the second photo, the Aldine edition of Plato’s works, printed in Venice, in 1513. Notice that the two volumes are different sizes. They come from different sets, cropped and bound differently. Along the way, Volume I lost its cover. Puzzles!
The register indicates there are 62 quires, 1-EE. All quires are gatherings of four sheets (“quaterniones”) folded down the middle to make eight leaves, except quires 2, ii, and EE, which are of two folded sheets (“duerniones"), or four leaves.
A researcher using this copy of Plato would do well to check that each of 968 pages of text is present, and standing in the right place.
Over centuries of use, misuse, vandalism, repair, and re-binding, leaves can go missing. The book may have been bound out of order to begin with. Binders, who often could not read the texts, followed letters and numbers on the fronts of the first half of every gathering of leaves (quire), called signatures. A quire of eight leaves may have signatures A Aii Aiii Aiiii, and then four with no marks. Page numbers were uncommon before 1600. Page numbers and signature order do not always match (put your money on the signatures).
A register, printed at the end of some books, indicates the order in which the binder should assemble the quires. The first photo shows the register for the two-volume work in the second photo, the Aldine edition of Plato’s works, printed in Venice, in 1513. Notice that the two volumes are different sizes. They come from different sets, cropped and bound differently. Along the way, Volume I lost its cover. Puzzles!
The register indicates there are 62 quires, 1-EE. All quires are gatherings of four sheets (“quaterniones”) folded down the middle to make eight leaves, except quires 2, ii, and EE, which are of two folded sheets (“duerniones"), or four leaves.
A researcher using this copy of Plato would do well to check that each of 968 pages of text is present, and standing in the right place.
Creator
Christopher Barbour
Source
Instagram: @Tischlibrary
Publisher
Tufts University. Tisch Library
Date
September 24, 2020
Contributor
Anna Minasyan
Format
image/jpg
Language
eng
Type
image
Coverage
2020
16th Century
Citation
Christopher Barbour, “September 24, 2020 – The Aldine Edition of Plato's Works,” Tufts Libraries Omeka, accessed April 30, 2024, https://omeka.library.tufts.edu/items/show/5289.