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• Paragraph layout

• RE: Paragraph layout

  ololololo > 7 hours ago

  (8 hours ago)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.He's not too worried about the wasted parchment, it's going to be a family heirloom like the fancy local Lord has. Our hero has seen such works and is impressed, but of course he's spent his life with "working books", notebooks and almanacs and the like. So the influences of his design are naturally from what he's familiar with, but with an eye towards "fancy" works with one image per page like the books of hours etc. He even oversees the font he wants and every time he changes scribes he orders them to imitate the master font and page templates.

  I'm not quite sure what you mean.
  As I understand it, you are paying attention to the lack of paragraph formatting and the fact that the text looks more like a working note than a European manuscript.
  In botany, "paragraphs" are clearly separated, and there is usually a space between them.
  But I think it's better to look for examples of paragraph marking in balneology, where the text is continuous and not particularly "divided".
  The marker there is p in most cases, t in fewer cases, k in even fewer cases, and only once f (on f78v, and then only in the word qofcheol). Some paragraphs, except for the first one, may start with s.
  Apparently, the author did indeed separate paragraphs in his writing, often using the p-gallows, sometimes even making it into a betony. 
  I hope I understood you correctly...

• RE: Paragraph layout

  Jorge_Stolfi > 4 hours ago

  (8 hours ago)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Purely as speculation, image a scenario where an older, now wealthy hedge doctor or herbalist gathers up his life's work and puts them into order. He tidies them all up and makes lots of notes to the scribes. He's old, he's got cash. So he gets scribes to copy out his notes into a book as a keepsake. He personally oversees the design of each page before breakfast and then wanders off for the day while the boy with a quill gets busy and does the day's work. 
  
  He's not too worried about the wasted parchment, it's going to be a family heirloom like the fancy local Lord has. Our hero has seen such works and is impressed, but of course he's spent his life with "working books", notebooks and almanacs and the like. So the influences of his design are naturally from what he's familiar with, but with an eye towards "fancy" works with one image per page like the books of hours etc. He even oversees the font he wants and every time he changes scribes he orders them to imitate the master font and page templates.

  
  That is mostly my preferred scenario, too.  Except that I imagine the master being impoverished so that he must use third-choice vellum, and he cannot afford to hire a professional vellum scribe.   His scribe is someone with good eyesight and a steady hand, who is used to writing on paper, but for a business where clarity is more important than beauty: a student, accountant, village notary or lawyer, letter-writer, ... It is the same scribe for most of the book, but the project stretches over a few years, and he does not even try to keep his handwriting consistent.
  
  All the best, --stolfi

• RE: Paragraph layout

  ololololo > 4 hours ago

  (4 hours ago)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

  (8 hours ago)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Purely as speculation, image a scenario where an older, now wealthy hedge doctor or herbalist gathers up his life's work and puts them into order. He tidies them all up and makes lots of notes to the scribes. He's old, he's got cash. So he gets scribes to copy out his notes into a book as a keepsake. He personally oversees the design of each page before breakfast and then wanders off for the day while the boy with a quill gets busy and does the day's work. 
  
  He's not too worried about the wasted parchment, it's going to be a family heirloom like the fancy local Lord has. Our hero has seen such works and is impressed, but of course he's spent his life with "working books", notebooks and almanacs and the like. So the influences of his design are naturally from what he's familiar with, but with an eye towards "fancy" works with one image per page like the books of hours etc. He even oversees the font he wants and every time he changes scribes he orders them to imitate the master font and page templates.

  
  That is mostly my preferred scenario, too.  Except that I imagine the master being impoverished so that he must use third-choice vellum, and he cannot afford to hire a professional vellum scribe.   His scribe is someone with good eyesight and a steady hand, who is used to writing on paper, but for a business where clarity is more important than beauty: a student, accountant, village notary or lawyer, letter-writer, ... It is the same scribe for most of the book, but the project stretches over a few years, and he does not even try to keep his handwriting consistent.
  
  All the best, --stolfi

  It sounds far-fetched. A more logical scenario is that when the scribe working on Botany was shown what needed to be drawn in Astrology and how much text needed to be written in Balneology, he demanded higher wages or simply left, so he hired people who wrote slightly worse but were willing to work.
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