       

......................................................................................................................

  -  -     
 
......................................................................................................................

-ˊ ˋ  ˋ 

(Translated by Frank T. Coulson)

T mise-en-page is “the general placement of the different elements which make up a
page.”¹ It is composed of the ratio of the written and decorated surface of the page to its
support and the manner in which this surface is structured. At the confluence of several
disciplines (such as codicology, paleography, and history of texts) the mise-en-page is rarely
studied for itself, and its history in Western medieval manuscripts remains to be written.
The mise-en-page of manuscripts is rarely described in the catalogues of libraries.
Rather, they are content to list a certain number of elements which, placed in context
one with another, could readily define it: these are the support material, the page size,
the margins, the ruling, the type of writing, the titles, the initials, the paragraph signs,
the decoration, etc.
Likewise, codicological manuals do not generally have a chapter on the mise-en-page
of manuscripts, but study in a minute fashion each of the individual elements of which
it is composed, taking into account the way in which the artist has placed them
successively in place.² They limit themselves to recalling the formula for the mise-en-
page (margins and lines) noted in a manuscript of the ninth century, Paris, BnF, lat.
. Léon Gilissen, in the very technical chapters on the mise-en-page of manuscripts
in his Prolégomènes à la codicologie, provided a commentary: “The formula seems to
guide the craftsman in the rather exact construction where the column corresponds to
the superimposing of two golden rectangles (one speaks of a golden rectangle when, in
dividing the large side of a rectangle by the small one, one obtains the quotient .).”³
The mise-en-page in a manuscript follows a program prescribed by the head of a
workshop: it may be based on an existing model or it may be an original creation, more
or less luxurious according to the financial limits of the person commissioning the
manuscript; often the mise-en-page is determined by the type of text. It is established
before the copying of the text; it defines and establishes the written space at the heart of the
page, anticipates the elements of its readability, and develops the program of illustrations.
 -ˊ ˋ  ˋ 

() The organization of the space written in the center of the page is contingent
upon
(i) the format of the support, i.e., the dimensions of the page. These evolve
according to economic indicators and the clientele.⁴
(ii) the relationship between the parameters of the justification (i.e., the dimen-
sions in height and width of the written surface) and the margins.⁵ Wide
margins are a sign of a deluxe manuscript and the wealth of the person
ordering the manuscript.
(iii) the structure of the written space, which may be in long lines or in several
columns. Gothic manuscripts show a preference for a two-column layout,
whereas humanistic manuscripts prefer long lines. The lines may be of
variable spaces.
The structure of the written space is defined by the ruling, which contains
the outline of the mise-en-page at the same time as it serves as a guideline
for the copy. The establishment of the scheme for the ruling is the first
thing to do in describing the mise-en-page. The ruling may be done with
dry point, lead point, or ink.⁶
(iv) the special case of text with commentary. Texts with commentary have
complex mises-en-page (Plate .). Antiquity had two types of commen-
tary: the marginal commentary in the form of scholia transmitted in the
manuscript of the classical author, and the autonomous commentary with
lemmata. The novelty of the early Middle Ages is that the text that
functions as commentary will be copied according to a layout that attempts
to associate the authoritative text with the commentary text; the layout will
vary according to whether one sees it primarily serving the goals of the
authoritative text or of the commentary text.⁷
Created at the end of the eleventh and beginning of the twelfth century, the
glossa ordinaria further developed the organization of the mise-en-page.
Text and commentary were welded together little by little on the page.
The hierarchy between the Bible and its commentary was established by the
contrast between the scripts and their interlinear placement: the text of the
Bible filled one interline in two; the intermediary line remained empty.
There were three sizes of writing: the largest for the biblical text, the middle
for the glossa ordinaria, and the smallest for the interlinear gloss.
Often, particularly in legal manuscripts, the commentary encircled the
authoritative text, and the different modules of script indicated the level
of importance accorded each text.
() The degree of “readability” of the page takes into account:
(i) all the aspects of writing: its form (Caroline minuscule, Gothic, cursive,
bastarda); its module; its position vis-à-vis the space between the lines; its
degree of leaning. For example, the readability of Caroline minuscule has
often been praised (Plate .). That is one of the reasons for which its later
form was imitated by the humanists in the fifteenth century.
  --    

(ii) the separation of words.

(iii) the punctuation.
(iv) abbreviations which render the page more dense.
(v) all the elements which organize into a hierarchy and structure the text to
facilitate the reading and comprehension (Plate .): the hierarchy of
scripts; the colors (red ink for chapter titles and biblical lemmata) and
their variation (blue and red, or black and red, violet and red); underlined
words; decorated or filigree letters cutting into or separating the text; the
succession of paragraph marks (which are called in French pieds de
mouche).
(vi) anything which makes the page more spaced out, and in particular the ends
of line which suppress empty spaces.⁸
() The relationship of text and image
The placement of the image in the text and of its relationship with the text is
governed by multiple constraints: it should be precisely determined before
copying the text.
The illustration (miniature or drawing) was for a long time inserted in the
columns of text, the space it occupied in ancient rolls. A good example is
provided by the illustration of the Comedies of Terence, from the Carolingian
period (Paris, BnF, lat. , fol. r, dated to the second half of the ninth
century). Associated with a decorated letter and sometimes with a rubricated
title, the miniature becomes, from the thirteenth century, a guide indicating the
beginning of books or chapters. From this moment, the miniature often enters
into a relationship with other elements of the decoration: side panels or full-
frame vegetation. The last-mentioned will invade the pages of French manu-
scripts in the fifteenth century, in an abundance of acanthus leaves and small
flowers, around the entire written text. Consequently, depending on the import-
ance given to the illustration, the miniature may spread out through the two
columns of text.
Freeing itself from the antique model, the illustration sometimes occupied the
margins, particularly in Italian regions.
The title page in its true sense does not exist in medieval manuscripts. Never-
theless, the picture inscribed on the first page of the deluxe manuscript, often
illustrated with a portrait of the author, a dedicatory scene, or a symbolic
synthesis of the work, will serve in the final centuries of the Middle Ages as a
title page.
Although one usually studies the mise-en-page on a single folio, one must
remember that the esthetic and artistic norm for the medieval page is in
reality the double page of an open book (Plates . and .).
The mise-en-page is one of the elements on which researchers rely to reconstruct
the output of scriptoria or of copying workshops. Sometimes they allow one to
reassemble parts of manuscripts dispersed to various places. Placed in relation to
the text or the illustration, it may also give much information on the norms of
reading or the medieval esthetic codes.⁹
 -ˊ ˋ  ˋ 

S E  --

..................................................................................................................................

A Codex of the Fifth Century Modeled

on the Ancient Roll
Livy wrote a Roman history in  books going from the foundation of Rome to the
death of Drusus. Only a small part is extant, Books –, and –. In the Roman
period, each book was preserved in a papyrus roll called a volume. Today, we have only
a fragment of the first decade conserved at Oxford in a papyrus from Oxyrhinchus.¹⁰
The mise-en-page of the oldest codices on parchment reproduced the succession of
columns of the volumina. This is the case with manuscript BnF, lat. , which
contains the third decade (Plate .). It was written in Italy, probably at Naples, in
the fifth century. At the beginning of the Carolingian age it was transported to the
abbey at Lorsch and then to Tours; Alcuin, who was abbot at the monastery of Saint-
Martin of Tours from  to , allowed it to be freely copied. In the seventeenth
century, the scholar Claude Dupuy revealed it to the scholarly world, whence its name
Puteanus.¹¹
Note the almost square format of the page:    mm; dry-point ruling; writing
surface:    mm. Note the narrowness of the text columns:  mm. Written in
Capitals mixed with Uncials, in scripta continua, i.e., with no word separation. The
beginning of Book  is noted in red. Running title: Titi Livi Lib(er) XXVI.

 . Livy, Ab urbe condita, manuscript of the fifth century in mixed Capitals and Uncials.
Paris, BnF, lat. , fols, v–r: end of Book  and beginning of Book  of Livy’s Ab urbe
condita.
Reading Aids and Editorial Work in a Manuscript
of the Fourteenth Century

(Continued )
 -ˊ ˋ  ˋ 

 . Paris, BnF, lat. , fol. r, beginning of Book  of Livy’s Ab urbe condita
Copied for Landolfo Colonna from a manuscript preserved at the cathedral of Chartres, at Rome
between  and , the manuscript went next to his nephew Giovanni Colonna, then to the
Dominican Bartolomeo Papazurri, before being bought by Petrarch in Avignon in .
Page measurements:  mm   mm; ruled in lead; justification:   . Written in two
columns of  lines, in Italian Gothic. Note the reading aids such as capitalization, with chapter
numbering and chapter summaries. These have been attributed to Donato degli Albanzani, a
friend of Petrarch. Several readings different from the main text are noted in red. Rubricated
title, miniature (knights before Pontius, general of the Samnites) and a historiated initial (with
an individual) S(equitur) trailing in the margin with a frame and decoration of grotesques
(a knight attacking a griffon) serving as a visual marker to note the beginning of Book  in the
manuscript volume.
Hierarchy of Scripts and Inks in a Manuscript
of the Ninth Century

 . Paris, BnF, lat. , fol. v.

Elegant use of the hierarchy of script to construct the first page of the Vita Martini of Sulpicius
Severus dating to the second quarter of the ninth century: mise-en-page where the writing goes
in “diminuendo,” as in Irish manuscripts. Page measurements    mm; dry-point ruling;
justification:    mm. Title in Capitals ( mm) written on every other line, with alternat-
ing black and red; the beginning of the text is marked by a large ornamented initial jutting out in
the margin; copied in Capitals mixed with Uncials ( mm) every other line in red ink and then in
a black ink; the text in Caroline minuscule follows.
An Authoritative Text with Commentary

 . Paris, BnF, lat. , fol. r: De anima of Aristotle (translatio vetus), Paris, third
quarter of the thirteenth century, with a historiated initial portraying the two intellects of
the soul.
  --    

Page measurements    mm; text justification:    mm; written in long lines, 
lines to the page.
The text of Aristotle is written in the central part corresponding to the third column; the
commentary is written in a cursive script by at least two, perhaps three hands.
Eleven vertical lines (that is to say, five double lines + ) delineate six columns of writing, as well
as the right margin; beginning at the left: first column (text partially obscured by the binding):
 mm; second column:  mm; third column: mm (authoritative text); fourth column:
 mm; fifth column:  mm; sixth column:  mm. The double lines, which derive from
Caroline models where the first letters of a text were carried outside the justification, serve in the
thirteenth century to inscribe the paragraph markers, thus placing them in relief.
Note the paragraph signs alternating in blue and red which determine the paragraphs, as well as
the title running along the top margin.
Double Page in a Manuscript of the Ninth Century

 .  . Paris, BnF, lat. , fols. v and r: Augustine, Enarrationes in
Psalmos, first half of the ninth century.
Page measurements    mm. Note the name of the person who commissioned the
manuscript in the rounded frame: “Landulfus ovans hunc libellum fieri iussit pro quo funde
preces carmina qui legis et dic: ipsius post obitum tu miserere Christe” and in the gold lettering:
“Landulfo sit vera lux” (fol. r). Note the decorative use of different Capitals, the play of color,
and the enclosed letters to mark the beginning of a Bible text.
  --    

 .  . Continued

 -ˊ ˋ  ˋ 

S R
Some important books and reference articles
Mise en page et mise en texte du livre manuscrit under the editorship of Henri-Jean Martin and
Jean Vezin, Paris, . This very complete work is structured as a series of descriptive
articles; some treat the case of unusual manuscripts, such as the Bible of Rorigon (Paris, BnF,
lat. , by P. Petitmengin, pp. –), or the Psalter of Otbert (Boulogne-sur-mer, Bibliothèque
municipale, MS , by G. Lobrichon, pp. –); others provide a synthesis of a particular
theme, such as the mise-en-page of the Canon of the Mass and Breviary by Father P.-M. Gy,
pp. –), or that of concordances and indices (by Richard and Mary Rouse, pp. –); still
others study the mise-en-page by genres: lyric poetry (by Pascale Bourgain, pp. –),
translations and commentaries. The work treats the mise-en-page of mainly Latin and French
manuscripts, but also Greek and Hebrew, and it provides several outlines for the mise-en-page.
Mise en page et mise en texte du livre français. La naissance du livre moderne (XIVe–XVIIe
siècle), under the editorship of Henri-Jean Martin, Paris, . The work shows how the
mise-en-page of printed books up until the sixteenth century is profoundly influenced by
the mise-en-page of medieval manuscripts.
Album des manuscrits français du XIIIe siècle. Mise en page et mise en text by Maria Careri,
Françoise Fery-Hue, Françoise Gasparri, Geneviève Hasenohr, Gilette Labory, Sylvie Lefèvre,
Anne-Françoise Leurquin, and Chrisine Ruby, Rome: Viella, . This work, which deals
with French manuscripts, may serve as a model. It investigates the mise-en-page of a booklet
in c. French manuscripts from the thirteenth century.
Three short articles related to quantitative codicology attempt to provide syntheses and to
raise questions:

• Carla Bozzolo, Dominique Coq, Denis Muzerelle, and Ezio Ornato, “Noir et blanc,
premiers résultats d’une enquête sur la mise en page dans le livre médiéval,” in Il Libro e
il Testo (Atti del Convegno internazionale, Urbino – settembre ), ed. C. Questa
and R. Rafaelli,Urbino , pp. –, reprinted in La Face cachée du livre médiéval,
pp. –. The article studies the coefficient of replacement of black in relationship to
white, i.e., the relationship of the written surface (not comprising the space between the
columns) to the total surface of the leaf.
• Carla Bozzolo, Dominique Coq, Denis Muzerelle, and Ezio Ornato, “Page savante, page
vulgaire: étude comparative des livres en latin et en français écrits ou imprimés en France
au XVe siècle,” in La Présentation du livre, Paris, , pp. –.
• Carla Bozzolo, Dominique Coq, Denis Muzerelle, and Ezio Ornato, “L’Artisan médiéval
et la page: Peut-on déceler des procédés géométriques de mise en page ?” in Artistes,
artisans et production artistique au Moyen-Âge (Actes du colloque, Rennes, – mais
), ed. X. Barral i Altet, vol. III, pp. –. Reprinted in Ezio Ornato, La Face
cachée du livre médiéval. L’histoire du livre vu par Ezio Ornato, ses amis et ses collègues,
Paris, , pp. –.
  --    

N
. Muzerelle (); see http://codicologia.irht.cnrs.fr/theme/liste_theme/#tr-,
accessed March , .
. See, in particular, Lemaire ().
. This ratio was published in  by Rand (–). It is explained by Gilissen (,
–):
Taliter debet fieri quaternionis forma, quinta parte longitudinis, quarta latitudinis.
Quintam partem da inferiori vel anteriori margini, et ipsam quintam partem divide in
.III. et dabis .II. superiori, subtracta .I. Rursus ipsas .II. partes divide in tres, dabisque
duas posteriori margini subtrahendo unam. Huic compar erit si media interfuerit.
Lineas vero juxta rationem scripturae divides, quia major scriptura latioribus, minor
autem strictioribus lineis indiget.
. Bozzolo and Ornato ().
. Gilissen (, –).
. See Muzerelle () and the slideshow the same author made in , available at http://
www.palaeographia.org/muzerelle/reglure.htm, accessed February , . Basing him-
self upon Leroy (), Muzerelle established a simple codification for the description of
the schemes for ruling. See, in particular, Muzerelle (, –) on types of ruling
schemas from the seventh to the fifteenth century. See also Derolez (), especially the
chapter on rulings, vol. , –.
. Holtz ().
. On the question of readability, defined as “the qualities which favor at the same time the
integrity of the text and the comfort of reading,” see Bergeron and Ornato ().
. Derolez ().
. A fragment with the shelf mark, Oxford, Bodleian Library, lat. class. f.  (P). P Oxy. Xi
. See CLA II, .
. On this topic, see, Van Büren ().

B
Bergeron, R. and E. Ornato. . “La Lisibilité dans les manuscrits et les imprimés de la fin du
moyen-âge, préliminaires d’une recherche.” Scrittura e civiltà : – [repr. in Ezio
Ornato, La Face cachée du livre médiéval. L’histoire du livre vu par Ezio Ornato, ses amis et
ses collègues, –, Paris, .
Bozzolo, C., and E. Ornato. . “Les Dimensions des feuilles dans les manuscrits français du
moyen-âge.” In Pour une histoire du livre manuscrit au moyen-âge : trois essais de
codicologie quantitative, –. Paris: Éditions du Centre national de la recherche
scientifique.
Derolez, A. . Codicologie des manuscrits en écriture humanistique sur parchemin,  vols.
Turnhout: Brepols.
Derolez, A. . “Observations on the Aesthetics of the Gothic Manuscript.” Scriptorium
: –.
Gilissen, L. . Prolégomènes à la codicologie: Recherches sur la construction des cahiers et la
mise en page des manuscrits médiévaux. Ghent: Story-Scientia.
 -ˊ ˋ  ˋ 

Holtz, L. . “Le Rôle des commentaires d’auteurs classiques dans l’émergence d’une mise
en page associant texte et commentaire (Moyen Âge occidental).” In Le Commentaire, entre
tradition et innovation (Actes du colloque international de l’Institut des traditions tex-
tuelles, Paris et Villejuif, – septembre ), ed. Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé, –.
Paris: Vrin.
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