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Traces of Ink – Experiences of Philology and Replication

Edited by Lucia Raggetti

TRACES OF INK – EXPERIENCES OF PHILOLOGY AND REPLICATION

An Arabic couplet, which circulated in Mediaeval erudite and scribal circles, says that the art of penmanship results from the sum of four different elements: the blackness of the ink, the making of a beautifully written artefact, a sharp pen, and a good sheet of paper.

This aphoristic hemistich singles are out the pivotal components common to almost all acts of writing: the presence of a medium, suitable support, along with the use of ergonomic writing implements in order to obtain a final result that has aesthetic value.

This synthetic perspective allows one to approach many different cultures and historical periods together, without losing sight of the differences between their particular interpretations of the shared pattern in writing practices.

Indeed, premodern cultures reflected on writing supports and implements, as well as the composition of written artefacts, and on the tools and substances which were meant to leave a clear impression of written signs.

They left behind a variety of material and textual witnesses, all of which were influenced and shaped by the language they spoke, the writing system they adopted, and the cultural lore related to the act of writing and its social meaning.

Recently, scholarship has developed a keen interest in following the ‘traces of ink’ left by many different premodern cultures. To mention but a few of these titles here would not do justice to the scholarly fields and specializations involved in the exploration of this research field.

I leave it to the chapters in this volume to offer a rich and up-to-date bibliography on their different subjects.