![]() ![]() The practice of writing in the margins of books gradually declined over several centuries after the invention of the printing press. Of the 52 extant manuscript copies of Lucretius' "De rerum natura" (On the Nature of Things) available to scholars, all but three contain marginal notes. Readers commonly wrote notes in the margins of books in order to enhance the understanding of later readers. Books, therefore, were long-term investments expected to be handed down to succeeding generations. Paper was expensive and vellum was much more expensive. ![]() In Europe, before the invention of the printing press, books were copied by hand, originally onto vellum and later onto paper. The scholia on classical manuscripts are the earliest known form of marginalia. For this reason, scholars of ancient texts usually try to find as many still existing manuscripts of the texts they are researching, because the notes scribbled in the margin might contain additional clues to the interpretation of these texts. As such, they might give clues to an earlier, more widely known context of the extant form of the underlying text than is currently appreciated. Marginalia may also be of relevance because many ancient or medieval writers of marginalia may have had access to other relevant texts that, although they may have been widely copied at the time, have since then been lost due to wars, prosecution, or censorship. There are some scholia, corrections and other notes usually made later by hand in the margin. Numbers of texts' divisions are given at the margin ( κεφάλαια, Ammonian Sections, Eusebian Canons). They may be scribbles, comments, glosses (annotations), critiques, doodles, drolleries, or illuminations.īiblical manuscripts have liturgical notes at the margin, for liturgical use. Marginalia (or apostils) are marks made in the margins of a book or other document. A page from an illuminated Armenian manuscript with painted marginalia ![]()
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