Page - 20 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/01

20 | Erich Renhart www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/1, 13–32 Techniques of (Re)Production The history of book fabrication involved a series of modifications, alterations and reinventions. Such shifts can readily be seen by looking at materials (e. g. papyrus or parchment, parchment or paper) or at book forms (scroll versus codex), and are all the more evident with regard to techniques for the repro- duction of texts, musical notation, images, graphics, maps and the like, both handwritten or printed. What techniques are preferrable and what are the consequences of realising those preferences? To answer this question, I turn now to two paradigmatic situations: (a) the shift from handwritten books to printed books, which marked the beginning of a new era, and (b) the transi- tion from printed books to their virtualisation, so to their dematerialisation in our own time. From Manuscript to Print Gutenberg’s mid-15th century invention resulted in vivid discussions, some- times indeed in disputes between the traditionally minded and the more forward-looking. This struggle is mirrored in many colophons, scribal notes and pamphlets. In 1494, Johannes Trithemius recorded in his treatise De laude scriptorum (In Praise of Scribes): Who ignores the difference between manuscript and print? The manuscript if written on parchment might outlive a thousand years; though the print, being a matter of paper – how long would it subsist? If the script can survive 200 years in a book made of paper, this will be an ambitious estimate.8 During the first decades of book printing, the natural inclination was to imitate what was found in the medieval manuscripts. Accordingly, printers designed the letters after the handwriting they were used to seeing in manuscripts.9 deauratos […] Quarto vero hoc quod puerilitas est litteras aureas et argenteas amare et in hiis delectari. […] Octavo hoc quod parum valet ista pulcritudo scripture. Non enim hominem saciat. 8 Steinmann 2013, 902.2: Trithemius, De laude scriptorum (7, anno 1492): Quis nescit quanta sit inter scripturam et impressuram distantia? Scriptura enim, si membranis imponitur, ad mille annos poterit perdurare; impressura autem, cum res papirea sit, quamdiu subsistet? Si in volumine papireo ad ducentos annos perdurare potuerit, magnum est. 9 Many fonts and other expressions of modern typography bear the names of early printers: e. g. Garamond, Bembo, Aldus, Didot.