About the binding(s?) and missing folios

[Jorge_Stolfi]

Are there historical examples of large collections of texts that were written on individual bifolios and were supposed to be kept as separate bifolios and read bifolio after bifolio?

I am guessing that, until 100 years ago and even after, any such collection that ended up in a library would have been bound together by the librarian, for practical handling and control reasons.

I can imagine that the author of a book like the VMS would have preferred to keep it as unbound bifolios.  Like one would keep a collection of maps. AFAIK, real herbals (with pressed dried plants) stored in botanical museums are normally kept unbound. 

And keeping the bifolios un-nested (so that the reading order would be bifolio-by-bifolio) would make sense if the author expected to add more material to it, a few folios at a time.

When the book left the author, these reasons would no longer hold.  Then the author or the new owner may have bound the bifolios together, for the same reasons above.  In the case of a herbal, the order would not mater.

All the best, --stolfi