Rubrics were usually inserted by scribes after copying the main text, using red ink and sometimes following a note in the margins of the manuscript. Similarly, the rubrics were still handwritten in the first printed books; but we may well ask what they were copied from? Some evidence shows that rubrics were listed on printed sheets attached to volumes as early as Gutenberg's Bible. This use can be found in multiple cases, so that it is possible to offer a better interpretation of such Tabulae rubricarum, best understood as lists of the rubrics to be copied rather than, as often considered, tables of contents.
Barbieri, E. R., «Dinanzi a la quale poco si potrebbe leggere»: il problema delle rubriche in alcuni incunaboli delle origini, in Barbieri, E. (ed.), Imago librorum. Mille anni di forme del libro in Europa, Olschki, Firenze 2021: <<BIBLIOTECA DI BIBLIOGRAFIA - DOCUMENTS AND STUDIES IN BOOK AND LIBRARY HISTORY>>, CCXV 235- 256 [http://hdl.handle.net/10807/196703]
«Dinanzi a la quale poco si potrebbe leggere»: il problema delle rubriche in alcuni incunaboli delle origini
Barbieri, Edoardo Roberto
2021
Abstract
Rubrics were usually inserted by scribes after copying the main text, using red ink and sometimes following a note in the margins of the manuscript. Similarly, the rubrics were still handwritten in the first printed books; but we may well ask what they were copied from? Some evidence shows that rubrics were listed on printed sheets attached to volumes as early as Gutenberg's Bible. This use can be found in multiple cases, so that it is possible to offer a better interpretation of such Tabulae rubricarum, best understood as lists of the rubrics to be copied rather than, as often considered, tables of contents.
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