5 ms·
Alternative thesis: OP picked an especially rare and expensive to produce first edition hand colored (!) copy of the Hortus Sanitatis which isn't representative
by akiselev 3y ago
Alternative thesis: OP picked an especially rare and expensive to produce first edition hand colored (!) copy of the Hortus Sanitatis which isn't representative of books from the early printing press era. If you look at the digitized copy from a later 1497 printing [1], the illustrations are all black and white although still beautiful. The first editions were colored because it was such a landmark textbook meant to be distributed to the fledgling academic class and royal libraries who were still used to commissioning expensive works from scribes. Today's equivalent would be those really expensive reference books found in college libraries that can only be used on site, except even more expensive and valuable.
Before governments started to introduce the early incarnations of copyright, printing was the wild west for over a century. Printers often copied the works of their rivals without any attribution or permission, resulting in numerous nearly identical editions of popular texts flooding the market and competition driving profits to zero. Printers raced each other to find original content and a ton of it was equivalent to today's mass market paperbacks.
Trashy adventure novels about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table were especially popular during this era, along with each and every translation of a classic text no matter how fanciful. They really didn't put as much effort into those as they did with first-of-its-kind textbooks and color printing didn't become widespread till later in the 16th century. Survivor bias is also at play since the books that survive tend to be the higher quality ones with color prints.
[1] https://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/ortussanitati00prss https://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/ortussanitati00p...
- taeric 3y agoStated differently, we preserved things from the past that we found beautiful.
- UncleMeat 3y agoThis is not true. The archive is complex and interesting but it is absolutely not the case that preservation was driven by beauty as a primary concern.
- taeric 3y agoI find this hard to believe? Did I word it sloppily? Of course, this is a conversation more than a pointed debate. But I would be surprised to find we go out of our way to preserve things that society doesn't find some aesthetic beauty in. Does that mean I don't believe we can also have people dedicated to archiving all things? No. The post I responded to had a good example of some of the "lesser quality" preservations of the same work.
- UncleMeat 3y agoArchivists do indeed have goals. Those goals are varied and change over time. But the bulk of material archived from the early modern period was archived for goals entirely separate from the preservation of beauty. It is an error to say that there is a simple misunderstanding of the nature of old books because those that are in the archive are very disproportionately beautiful.
- taeric 3y agoRight. You are talking about archivists. I was making a broader point of society. Especially for many old books, it is not shocking that the ones that were there to be archived were the pretty ones. Many of the very beautiful things were literally done for rich sponsors. I fully cede that someone whose job is to archive stuff likely does so for the sake of archival. Even there, I suspect there is largely a bend towards things we see as beautiful; but I grant archival for its own beauty is a thing and most of the bend will be before the archivist is involved.
- akiselev 3y agoThe most common book from the 16th century (and onward) to survive to this day is the family bible, so it was less about beauty and more about religious devotion mixed with the Reformation promoting a more accessible liturgy.
- taeric 3y agoI feel you are just talking past me? Many view the bible as a beautiful book. An heirloom, if you will. And I guarantee you the children's bibles were not nearly as kept as the ones for adults.
- peoplefromibiza 3y agonot really :) https://www.militarytimes.com/off-duty/military-culture/2019/02/28/1800-year-old-roman-penis-carvings-discovered-near-hadrians-wall-some-things-never-change/ https://www.militarytimes.com/off-duty/military-culture/2019...
- fallat 3y agoWhy are all capitals red there?
- WalterBright 3y ago> resulting in numerous nearly identical editions of popular texts flooding the market and competition driving profits to zero. A lot of parallels can be found with Open Source software.
- pm3003 3y agoI assume coloured illustrated incunabula were hand coloured, as coloured woodblocks were complicated. Coloured editions are generally rare.