Second Descriptive Bibliography

The scholar Jerome McGann distinguishes between the linguistic and bibliographic codes of textual objects. The linguistic code refers to the textual content, such as the words that comprise The Catcher in the Rye. In contrast, the bibliographic code is the material evidence that suggests history and usage of a textual object, including such factors as its size, paper, binding, marginalia, annotations, and ownership inscriptions.

For this assignment, I visited Special Collections in Gould Library to look at one of Carleton’s oldest printed books: a 1474 copy of the Fasciculus temporum, which chronicles the history of the world from God’s Creation to its publication date. The book was incredibly popular in its time and reflected the centrality of Christianity in 15th-century European life and the devotion of its author, Werner Rolewinck, to Scripture. In investigating the book’s bibliographic code, the size of its pages and a few annotations hinted that it was used as a reference book and not designed to be especially portable, which is in line with its nature as a world history book. At some point in time, a person (or multiple different people) had drawn small hands called manicules in the margins to note significant passages. Part of the reason the pages are the size they are is to fit the images, circles, and lines that populate nearly every page. While it seems like the challenging layout would be easier to achieve by the hand of a skilled scribe than by the hand of even the most accurate typesetter, a lost folio in the book that was replaced with a replica written by hand suggests otherwise. It looks nothing like the printed pages, but it also raises questions about who did the replication and when.

The Fasciculus temporum comes from the incunabula period, beginning after the invention of the printing press in the mid-15th century and lasting to the beginning of the 16th century, when the printing press became widespread in Europe. While incunabula were printed books, their authors and typesetters often sought to replicate elements of the hand-produced manuscripts which had characterized the production of textual objects for centuries. For example, a couple pages in the Fasciculus temporum have large, elaborate first letters, called initials, which were common in medieval manuscripts. Most of the book’s pages share parallel lines that run horizontally across the center of the page, labeled with numbers and with circles periodically in between them. These are timelines, one labelled Anno Domini (beginning at Christ’s birth) and the other Anno Mundi (beginning at God’s Creation). It was easy to see why the book might have been so popular, since with no knowledge of Latin it was still possible to read parts of it.

Early in the book there is a printed image of Christ in heaven, surrounded by angels, presiding over the Sun, Moon, and Earth. Above this is an image of two pillars connected by an arch and surrounded by two circles. The arch says something about the edition of biblical truth and underneath the arch is printed God, Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Between the columns are listed all the elements of Heaven and Earth that God created, including Man. On the outside of the column to the left is printed God’s creation and ordering of the world, and on the right are listed the days of Creation. On other pages, the names of kings, prophets, and other important historical figures are listed inside printed circles, which probably reflects the idea that rulers were appointed by God. The larger circles between the two timelines appear for Adam, Noah, Abraham, David, the Babylonian exile, Joseph, Mary, and Christ, followed by Peter and subsequent popes. The birth of Christ on the timeline is followed by two pages of text and and image about Jesus, his apostles, and the four canonical gospels.