[DCRM-L] Continuous bifolia numeration (foliatation interrompue)

[Noble, Richard]

You could say it's interrupted, as foliation, but really it's continuous
sheet numbering--in folio, e.g. the 1st to 4th sheets in 8s, in quarto the
outer (1/2) and inner (3/4) sheets. Infrequent, but occasionally found in
incunabula. Without the letters you have to know the sheets per gathering
to get it right. (I think--I'm not actually folding paper at the moment,
which can be dangerous.)

RICHARD NOBLE :: RARE MATERIALS CATALOGUER :: JOHN HAY LIBRARY
BROWN UNIVERSITY  ::  PROVIDENCE, R.I. 02912  ::  401-863-1187
<Richard_Noble at Br <RICHARD_NOBLE at BROWN.EDU>own.edu>

On Thu, Jul 19, 2018 at 4:17 PM, Joseph Ross <jross at nd.edu> wrote:

> Colleagues,
>
> In recent discussions of books that use signatures that number or letter
> the bifolia continuously from one quire to the next but have no quire
> signatures: i.e., 1,2,3,4 (4 leaves unsigned), 5,6,7,8 (4 leaves unsigned)
> or a,b,c,d,e (4 leaves unsigned) f,g,h,i (4 leaves unsigned .... to the end
> of the book.  I remarked that this was a rarely used signature pattern from
> manuscript books.  I have found my source for this statement:  Albert
> Derolez, Codicologie des manuscrits en ecriture humanistique sur parchemin.
> Brepols, 1984, P. 48.  Derolez identifies 6 types of leaf signatures
> (signatures de feuillets) that are being used in 15th century Italian
> manuscripts.  The sixth type he calls "Signatures a foliatation
> interrompue: They have the form a1 a2 a3 a4 a5  ... b6 b7 b8 b9 or without
> the letters identifying the quire: 1 2 3 4 5 ... 6 7 8 9 10 etc.  This
> exceptional type is found in 7 cases (0.6 % of the corpus) of which the
> oldest is no earlier than 1453. "
>
> I am not sure where I found the terminology continuous bifolia numeration,
> but this text at least shows that manuscript scribes did occasionally use
> this kind of signature pattern.
>
> Just to show I did not make this up!
>
> Joe Ross
> Rare Book Cataloger\
> University of Notre Dame
>
>
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