Unveiled Faces of Medieval Hebrew Books: The Evolution of Manuscript Production -- Progression Or Regression?This study examines five different aspects of the production of medieval Hebrew manuscripts while attempting to check whether the manuscripts reflect a clear historical process of progress and rationalization: ergometrically amelioration of the technical production procedures, growing efficiency in copying, greater comfort of reading and clarity of the text hierarchy, and greater faithfulness to the copied text. The study addresses the question whether the history of Jewish handwritten book production and consumption until the beginning of Hebrew printing mirrors compromises between economic constraints and functional needs or optimization of production process, as it is claimed by Ezio Ornato concerning Western manuscripts, or it is possible to discern the dominant impact of interests other than economic or functional in the history of the fabrication of Hebrew books, such as the esthetical and the rethorical . These aspects are analyzed while deploying the unique empirical procedure of Hebrew quantitative codicology, based on a database of codicological features of all the extant dated Hebrew manuscripts. |
Contents
Acknowledgments | 7 |
Copying Dynamics Line Management | 33 |
The Structural Transparency of Copied Texts | 49 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
aesthetic Arabic Ashkenazic biblical manuscripts Biblioteca Bibliothèque nationale hébr bifolia Bodleian Library Cairo Geniza codex Codices hebraicis codicology colophons comfort of reading copied text cursive mode dated codices dated manuscripts Dead Sea Scrolls decorative Derolez earliest eleventh century evolution Ezio Ornato face cachée fifteenth century folios France Geniza Germany graphic fillers halakhic Hebrew codices Hebrew Codicology Hebrew script hired scribes Iberian Peninsula idem initial words Introduction Italian Italy Jerusalem Latin manuscripts legibility line management livre médiéval Malachi Beit-Arié manuscripts written medieval Hebrew Middle Ages midrashic Mishna mode of script non-square modes note 13 Palaeography parchment Paris percent Plate practice quires relief ruling ruling device scribal scribes Scrolls Sefardic semi-cursive mode semi-cursive script single pricking Sirat square mode square script Talmudic textual thirteenth century transmission twelfth century University Library Yemen אחת את ביום יום כהן כן לו לי מועל מועלין מן על ער פרעה שאין שלא שני