How the Page Matters

161 Pages·2011·1.104 MB·English

by  Bonnie Mak

HOW THE PAGE MATTERS
From handwritten texts to online books, the page has been a standard interface for
transmitting knowledge for over two millennia. It is also a dynamic device, readily trans-
formed to suit the needs of contemporary readers. In How the Page Matters, Bonnie
Mak explores how changing technology has affected the reception of visual and written
information.
Mak examines the fifteenth-century Latin text Controversia de nobilitate in three
forms – as a manuscript, a printed work, and a digital edition. Transcending boundaries
of time and language, How the Page Matters connects technology with tradition using
innovative new media theories. While historicizing our contemporary digital culture
and asking how on-screen combinations of image and text affect the way we understand
information being conveyed, Mak’s elegant analysis proves both the timeliness of study-
ing interface design and the persistence of the page as a mechanism for communication.
(Studies in Book and Print Culture)
bonnie mak is an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Library and Informa-
tion Science and the Program for Medieval Studies at the University of Illinois.
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Bonnie Mak
How the Page Matters
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
© University of Toronto Press 2011
Toronto Buffalo London
www.utppublishing.com
Printed in Canada
ISBN 978-0-8020-9760-6 (cloth)

Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with vegetable-based inks.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Mak, Bonnie
How the page matters / Bonnie Mak.
(Studies in book and print culture series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8020-9760-6
1. Books – Format – History. 2. Book design – History. 3. Graphic design
(Typography) – History. 4. Buonaccorso, da Montemagno, ca. 1391–1429.
Controversia de nobilitate. I. Title. II. Series: Studies in book and print culture
Z246.M33 2011 002 C2011-902771-2
In memoriam
Leonard E. Boyle, O.P.
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Contents
Abbreviations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 3
1 Architectures of the Page 9
2 Reading the Page 22
3 The Paratext and the Page 34
4 Reading the Library 47
5 The Digital Page 62
Conclusion 72
Notes 75
Bibliography 95
Index 123
Plates follow p. 68
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Abbreviations
Libraries
BAV Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican City
Bib. Laur. Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence
Bib. Naz. Cent. Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence
Bib. Ricc. Biblioteca Riccardiana, Florence
BL British Library, London
BNF Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris
HEHL Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California
KB Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague
KBR Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, Brussels
Printed Sources
BMC British Museum. Catalogue of Books Printed in the XVth Century now in the
British Museum. Vols. London: By Order of the Trustees, 1908– .
BSB-Ink Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Inkunabelkatalog.
Vols. Wiesbaden: L. Reichert, 1988– .
CIBN Bibliothèque nationale de France. Catalogue des incunables. Vols. Paris: Bib-
liothèque nationale, 1981– .
Duff E. Gordon Duff. Fifteenth Century English Books: A Bibliography of Books
and Documents Printed in England and of Books for the English Market
Printed Abroad. Oxford: Printed for the Bibliographical Society at the
Oxford University Press, 1917.
ESTC English Short Title Catalogue. At http://estc.bl.uk.
Goff Frederick R. Goff, ed. Incunabula in American Libraries: A Third Census of
Fifteenth-Century Books Recorded in North American Collections. Millwood,
NY: Kraus Reprint, 1973.