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<<cacheaudio Home "assets/audio/LongWalkHome.mp3">> <<cacheaudio DullStars "assets/audio/DullStars.mp3">> <<cacheaudio Crowned "assets/audio/DroneWallahCrowned.mp3">> <<cacheaudio Ivy "assets/audio/Ivy.mp3">>
<span class="header">[img[assets/images/CRRSlogo.png][https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/]]</span> ![[❧ typographia|START]] !!Sources\ \ <div class="hanging">Robert Bringhurst, //[[The Elements of Typographical Style|http://www.hartleyandmarksgroup.com/Hartley-&-Marks-Publishers]]//, version 3.2. Published in Vancouver, Canada by Hartley & Marks in 2008.</div> \ <div class="hanging">Claire Cock-Starkey, [[“A Star Is Born: The History of the Asterisk.”|https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/star-born]] Published online in //Lapham’s Quarterly// in 2021.</div> \ <div class="hanging">Peter T. Daniels & William Bright, //[[The World’s Writing Systems|https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780195079937/]].// Published in New York City & Oxford, England by Oxford University Press in 1996.</div> \ <div class="hanging">Phillip Gaskel, //[[A New Introduction to Bibliography|https://archive.org/details/newintroductiont0000gask]]//. Published in Newcastle, Delaware by Oak Knoll Press in 1995.</div> \ <div class="hanging">Anne C. Henry, “Ellipsis Marks in a Historical Perspective,” in //[[The Motivated Sign|https://books.google.ca/books/about/The_Motivated_Sign.html?id=EZQ9AAAAQBAJ]]//, edited by Olga Fischer & Max Nänny. Published in Amsterdam & Philadelphia by John Benjamins Publishing Co. in 2001.</div> \ <div class="hanging">Keith Houston, //[[Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols & Other Typographical Marks|https://books.google.ca/books?id=3fbWAAAAQBAJ]]//. Published in New York City & London by W.W. Norton & Co. in 2013. Houston also blogs [[here|https://shadycharacters.co.uk]].</div> \ <div class="hanging">David Lewis-Williams. //[[The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art|https://wwnorton.com/books/9780500284650]]//. Published in London, England by Thames & Hudson in 2002.</div> \ <div class="hanging">Neil MacGregor, //[[A History of the World in 100 Objects|https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/309840/a-history-of-the-world-in-100-objects-by-neil-macgregor/]]//. Published in London, England & elsewhere by Allen Lane (Penguin Books) in 2010.</div> \ <div class="hanging">Kathleen McNamee, //[[Sigla And Select Marginalia In Greek Literary Papyri|https://sites.dlib.nyu.edu/viewer/books/isaw_pbrx000026/2]]//. Published in Brussels by the Queen Elizabeth Egyptological Association in 1992.</div> \ <div class="hanging">//[[Oxford English Dictionary|https://www.oed.com/]]//. Published online by Oxford University Press in 2022.</div> \ <div class="hanging">M.B. Parkes, //[[Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West|https://books.google.ca/books?id=QCaoDQAAQBAJ]]//. Published in Hampshire, England & Burlington, Vermont by Ashgate Publishing Co. in 1992.</div> \ <div class="hanging">Andrew Pettegree, //[[The Book in the Renaissance|https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300178210/the-book-in-the-renaissance/]]//. Published in New Haven & London, England by Yale University Press in 2010.</div> \ <div class="hanging">Genevieve von Petzinger, //[[The First Signs: Unlocking the Mysteries of the World’s Oldest Symbols|https://books.google.ca/books?id=FmgNCgAAQBAJ]]//. Published in New York City & elsewhere by Atria Books (Simon & Schuster) in 2016.</div> \ <div class="nav" style="float:left">[[home|home]]<span class="fist" style="float:left">[[☜|home]]</span></div>\ <div class="footrule"> </div>\ <div class="credits"><span class="smallcaps">audio:</span> “Long Way Home.” Uitgezonderd, //[[Burning Giraffes at Sea|http://webbedhandrecords.com/wh156-uitgezonderd-burning-giraffes-at-sea]]//. [[CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/]].</div>\ \ <<audio ":playing" pause>><<audio Home volume 0 fadeto 0.10>><<audio Home loop play>>
<span class="header">[img[assets/images/CRRSlogo.png][https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/]]</span> ![[❧ typographia|START]] !!Asterisk !!!1. paleolithic stars\ <div class="figure" style="width:35%"><img src="assets/images/asterisk1_1.jpg" style="width:100%" alt="Four deer teeth, two with asterisks incised"><div class="figcaption">[[Necklace of La Dame de St. Germain-la-Rivière|https://musee-prehistoire-eyzies.fr/collection/objet/la-parure-de-saint-germain-la-riviere]]<br>ca. 14,000 <span style="font-variant: small-caps">bce</span>.</div></div><span class="dropcap">O</span>nce upon a time, someone polished a deer tooth, carved a star on it, and strung it on a cord. That [[necklace|https://musee-prehistoire-eyzies.fr/collection/objet/la-parure-de-saint-germain-la-riviere]] was found in southern France 16,000 years later in the grave of a young woman buried with wealth and honours. She was laid in the fetal position, head facing east, [[where the morning star rises|https://thoreaufarm.org/2017/02/to-begin-at-the-end/]]. Two lines form a cross, a third passes through at an angle, and there you have your asterisk. The same sign appears on another tooth in the grave as well as in Upper Paleolithic paintings in nearby caves. And we understand better what this young woman’s posture in the grave meant, than we do what, or even //how//, that <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊</span> did. Was it a piece of language indexed to a word (a [[logogram|https://www.britannica.com/topic/logogram-writing]]) or an idea (an [[ideogram|https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ideogram]])? Writing is usually thought to have begun much later – at most this is [[proto-writing|https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-archaeological-journal/article/an-upper-palaeolithic-protowriting-system-and-phenological-calendar/6F2AD8A705888F2226FE857840B4FE19]]. Maybe it was a sign that //meant// the thing it //pictured// (a [[pictogram|https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pictogram]]). A star in the night sky, say, or three footpaths crossing. Or maybe it was a [[tally mark|https://www.cuemath.com/data/tally-marks]], a way of counting, 1, 2, 3. Or maybe it recorded an [[entoptic form|https://www.jstor.org/stable/2743395]] the visual system makes under some conditions. (Close your eyes, press your eyelids with your fingertips, and wait.) Whatever, //however//, it meant, it was clearly made to outlast the hand that made it, the eye that read. Its makers believed, as the printers of early modern Europe also believed, that thought can find a durable home in matter. <div class="nav" style="float:left">[[back|asterisk0]]<span class="fist" style="float:left">[[☜|asterisk0]]</span></div><div class="nav" style="float:right">[[onward|asterisk2]]<span class="fist" style="float:right">[[☞|asterisk2]]</span></div>\ <div class="footrule"> </div>\ <div class="credits"><span class="smallcaps">image:</span> Dillon von Petzinger. [[Collection MNP Les Eyzies|https://musee-prehistoire-eyzies.fr/en]] (France). <span class="smallcaps">audio:</span> “Dull Stars.” fosel, //[[Dull Stars|http://webbedhandrecords.com/wh176-fosel-dull-stars/]]//. [[CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/]]. </div>\ \ <<audio ":playing" pause>><<audio DullStars volume 0 fadeto 0.10>><<audio DullStars loop play>>
<span class="header">[img[assets/images/CRRSlogo.png][https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/]]</span> ![[❧ typographia|START]] !!Asterisk !!!2. a sumerian sky god\ <div class="figureleft" style="width:50%"><img src="assets/images/asterisk2_1.jpg" style="width:100%" alt="Cuneiform tablet showing An character"><div class="figcaption">[[Cuneiform tablet|https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1989-0130-4]] ca. 3000 <span style="font-variant: small-caps">bce</span> recording a transaction in beer.</div></div><span class="dropcap">T</span>he Sumerian pictogram <span class="specchar" style="color:red">𒀭</span> was an image of An, god of the heavens. One star stood for the whole of him. Over time the glyph changed form and came to be used as a logogram for the word <span class="specchar">dingir</span> (“god” or “goddess”), a [[phonogram|https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/phonogram]] for the sound <span class="specchar">an</span>, and phonograms for other sounds in the [[syllabaries|https://www.britannica.com/topic/syllabary]] of later languages. If you worked in Sumer 5,000 years ago, you might have been paid in beer, and a tablet like this would document your wages: an early payroll record. It reads right-to-left, with the pictogram <span class="specchar" style="color:red">𒀭</span> appearing in the last box on the second row. Sources [[disagree|https://shadycharacters.co.uk/2020/11/miscellany-89-year-of-the-asterisk]] as to whether <span class="specchar">an</span> is ancestor to the asterisk. The pattern is simple, four strokes crossing through a shared centre – the resemblance might be coincidence. See a later, three-stroke asteriskoid [[here|https://dia.org/collection/foundationtablet-sin-kashid-king-uruk-33410]]. <div class="nav" style="float:left">[[back|asterisk1]]<span class="fist" style="float:left">[[☜|asterisk1]]</span></div><div class="nav" style="float:right">[[onward|asterisk3]]<span class="fist" style="float:right">[[☞|asterisk3]]</span></div>\ <div class="footrule"> </div>\ <div class="credits"><span class="smallcaps">image:</span> [[Tablet recording the allocation of beer|https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1989-0130-4]]. © The Trustees of the British Museum. [[CC BY-NC-SA 4.0|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0]]. <span class="smallcaps">audio:</span> “Dull Stars.” fosel, //[[Dull Stars|http://webbedhandrecords.com/wh176-fosel-dull-stars/]]//. [[CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/]].</div>\ \ <<audio ":playing" pause>><<audio DullStars volume 0 fadeto 0.10>><<audio DullStars loop play>>
<span class="header">[img[assets/images/CRRSlogo.png][https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/]]</span> ![[❧ typographia|START]] !!Asterisk !!!3. the wandering stars\ <span class="dropcap">A</span> tooth in a grave above the river Vézère. Clay gathered from the banks of the Euphrates. We pick up the story of the asterisk <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊</span> among reeds alongside the Nile, in the second century <span style="font-variant:small-caps">bce</span>, with [[Aristarchus of Samothrace|https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/star-born]], sixth head librarian of the Library of Alexandria. Editing a new edition of Homer’s poetry, writing on papyrus, with ink likely made of [[soot and charcoal suffused with copper|https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/chemistry/ancient-egyptians-preferred-metallic-inks/]], he used an <span class="specchar">asteriskos</span> <span class="specchar" style="color:red">※</span> to mark verses that had been copied by mistake, or that had mig­rated from their proper places. Each “little star” on its support of woven plant fibre was a compound of water, vegetation, mineral, and discernment. <img src="assets/images/asterisk3_1.jpg" style="width:100%" alt="Detail of papyrus fragment showing asteriskoi in margins"><div class="figcaption">Asteriskoi in the margins of a fragment of Greek papyrus of unknown date (none of Aristarchus’s survive).</div>\ \ In the third century CE, the Christian scholar [[Origen|https://www.britannica.com/biography/Origen]] adopted the //asteriskos// <span class="specchar" style="color:red">※</span> for the [[Hexapla|https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hexapla]], his reconciliation of the Hebrew [[Pentateuch|https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195393361/obo-9780195393361-0092.xml]] with several Greek translations. Where the [[Septuagint|https://www.britannica.com/topic/Septuagint]], his main Greek text, omitted a He­brew verse, he inserted that verse from a different translation. He marked the spot with an //asteriskos//, meaning, “this, though it comes from elsewhere, belongs here.” For Aristarchus <span class="specchar" style="color:red">※</span> meant something was displaced. For Origen <span class="specchar" style="color:red">※</span> meant something has found its proper home. Com­pare the distinction between //emigrant// and //immigrant//. <div class="nav" style="float:left">[[back|asterisk2]]<span class="fist" style="float:left">[[☜|asterisk2]]</span></div><div class="nav" style="float:right">[[onward|asterisk4]]<span class="fist" style="float:right">[[☞|asterisk4]]</span></div>\ <div class="footrule"> </div>\ <div class="credits"><span class="smallcaps">image:</span> [[Wikimedia Commons.|https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Asteriskos.jpg]] <span class="smallcaps">audio:</span> “Dull Stars.” fosel, //[[Dull Stars|http://webbedhandrecords.com/wh176-fosel-dull-stars/]]//. [[CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/]]. </div>\ \ <<audio ":playing" pause>><<audio DullStars volume 0 fadeto 0.10>><<audio DullStars loop play>>
<span class="header">[img[assets/images/CRRSlogo.png][https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/]]</span> ![[❧ typographia|START]] !!Asterisk !!!5. “and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years”\ <span class="dropcap">A</span>t the dawn of print in Europe – hundreds of years after its invention in [[China|http://www.silk-road.com/artl/printing.shtml]] and [[Korea|https://artsandculture.google.com/story/the-invention-of-movable-metal-type-goryeo-technology-and-wisdom-cheongju-early-printing-museum/zgXxwilonG6kIg?hl=en]] – the <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊</span> started flowering everywhere. One source suggests the <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊</span> adapted to cast metal type better than marks with thinner strokes (such as the diple<span class="specchar" style="color:red"> > </span> and obelus <span class="specchar" style="color:red">—</span>) which scribes had used in similar ways. By now the <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊</span> now was most often a //[[signe de renvoi|https://drc.usask.ca/projects/archbook/signes_de_renvoi.php]]// or reference mark – meaning “there’s more to say, you can find it nearby.” An edition of the King James Bible printed in 1616 uses the <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊</span> specifically for cross-references: <div class="figure" style="width:100%"><img src="assets/images/asterisk5_1.jpg" style="width:100%" alt="Detail of folio A1r showing asterisks linking passages to cross-references"></div> !!!!![[see the whole page →|asterisk5a]]<br>[[see it in the catalogue →|https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/8472]] A star <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊</span> stitches the verse <span class="specchar">male and female created he them</span> to verses in the New Testament ([[Matthew 19:4|https://biblehub.com/matthew/19-4.htm]]) – insisting they belong to the same book, the same faith, as this patch of Genesis. Thus each <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊</span> plays a small part in reframing the Hebrew Torah as the Christian Old Testament. In the process, the <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊</span> also steers your reading down paths already trod by others. In this way, the little star serves orthodoxy. <div class="nav" style="float:left">[[back|asterisk4]]<span class="fist" style="float:left">[[☜|asterisk4]]</span></div><div class="nav" style="float:right">[[onward|asterisk6]]<span class="fist" style="float:right">[[☞|asterisk6]]</span></div>\ <div class="footrule"> </div>\ <div class="credits"><span class="smallcaps">folio:</span> //The Holy Bible, Containing the Old Testament, and the New// ([[USTC 3007322|https://www.ustc.ac.uk/editions/3007322]]), f. A1r. Printed in London in 1616 by [[Robert Barker|https://datchethistory.org.uk/datchet-people/robert-barker]]. <span class="smallcaps">audio:</span> “Dull Stars.” fosel, //[[Dull Stars|http://webbedhandrecords.com/wh176-fosel-dull-stars/]]//. [[CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/]].</div>\ \ <<audio ":playing" pause>><<audio DullStars volume 0 fadeto 0.10>><<audio DullStars loop play>>
<span class="header">[img[assets/images/CRRSlogo.png][https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/]]</span> ![[❧ typographia|START]] !!Asterisk !!!6. give form to the formless\ <div class="figure" style="width:45%"><img src="assets/images/asterisk6_1.jpg" style="width:100%" alt="Detail of folio b6r showing asterism"> !!!!![[see the whole page →|asterisk6a]]<br>[[see it in the catalogue →|https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/8472]] </div><span class="dropcap">T</span>he <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊</span> did not forget its other roles. Clusters of them that medieval scribes had used to mark a rup­ture were standardized as the //asterism// <span class="specchar" style="color:red">⁂</span> . That starry triad could (as before) mark a break or omis­sion. It could draw attention to a passage (as one <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊</span> could and does still today). Or it could stand in the midst of nothingness, attesting to a typographical //[[horror vacui|https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_vacui_(art)]]//. That’s how, at first, it seems to be used here: as //something// in an otherwise //nothing// region of the page. Set alongside the shortest line, <span class="specchar">Ioel</span> (Joel), it inhabits the region at its empti­est point – the proverbial middle of nowhere – and gives to airy nothing [[a definition and a form|https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/a-midsummer-nights-dream/quotes/]]. By such a reading, this <span class="specchar" style="color:red">⁂</span> , superfluous, decorative, anxi­ous, embodies a fear of disorder we now call The State. The priests of Sumer and their Babylonian inheritors, whose hero Marduk [[broke a chaos dragon into parts and set them in order|https://www.worldhistory.org/article/225/enuma-elish---the-babylonian-epic-of-creation---fu]], bequeathed that fear to censors of the English Crown, whose stamp of approval any printed book had to secure. But this asterism <span class="specchar" style="color:red">⁂</span> also serves a humbler purpose – less metaphysical than compositional. Paper is not rigid. When type, set and held tight in a chase, presents a sizable area with no [[type-high|https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/type-high]] material, the paper may sag and brush the shoulders of the nearest type-high sorts – leaving, as evidence of contact, a black mark. \ <div class="figure" style="width:100%"><img src="assets/images/asterisk6_2.jpg" style="width:100%" alt="TK"><div class="figcaption">The shoulders of the type in the last line have left an impression.</div></div> So [[printers’ ornaments|https://library.louisville.edu/art/exhibits/printers-ornaments]] usually settle as close to the middle of nowhere as they can get. Their insistence on the merits of symmetry and order is by this reading accidental. Or maybe a civilization that valued negative space and asymmetry would have preferred the rigours of [[Chinese xylography|https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/08/11/the-joys-of-polychrome-xylography/]] to those of Western letterpress. //[[Techne|https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/techne]]// and //[[poiesis|https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/poiesis]]// are not easily parted. <div class="nav" style="float:left">[[back|asterisk5]]<span class="fist" style="float:left">[[☜|asterisk5]]</span></div><div class="nav" style="float:right">[[onward|asterisk7]]<span class="fist" style="float:right">[[☞|asterisk7]]</span></div>\ <div class="footrule"> </div>\ <div class="credits"><div class="hanging"><span class="smallcaps">folios:</span> 1. //The Holy Bible, Containing the Old Testament, and the New// ([[USTC 3007322|https://www.ustc.ac.uk/editions/3007322]]), f. b6r. Printed in London in 1616 by [[Robert Barker|https://datchethistory.org.uk/datchet-people/robert-barker]]. 2. M. V. Martialis, //Epigrammaton libri XIIII// ([[USTC 181441|https://www.ustc.ac.uk/editions/181441]]), f. d8r. Printed in Paris in 1533 by [[Simon de Colines|https://www.britannica.com/biography/Simon-de-Colines]] (CRRS [[PA6501 .D6 1533|https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/9785]]).</div>\ <span class="smallcaps">audio:</span> “Dull Stars.” fosel, //[[Dull Stars|http://webbedhandrecords.com/wh176-fosel-dull-stars/]]//. [[CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/]].</div>\ \ <<audio ":playing" pause>><<audio DullStars volume 0 fadeto 0.10>><<audio DullStars loop play>>
<span class="header">[img[assets/images/CRRSlogo.png][https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/]]</span> ![[❧ typographia|START]] !!Asterisk !!!7. a tear runs through it\ <div class="figure" style="width:55%"><img src="assets/images/asterisk7_1.jpg" style="width:100%" alt="Detail of folio b6r showing tear through an asterism and folio A1r below"> !!!!![[see the whole assemblage →|asterisk7a]] </div><span class="dropcap">F</span>or centuries the asterisk <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊</span> had marked a gap or lack: a space shining (as Isi­dore said) with something that //seems// to have been left out. The stars have a long association with acci­dent. Think “star-crossed lovers,” the word //dis­aster//. And the written word may be the most acci­dent-prone human artefact ever. Tablets crum­ble. Papyrus collapses. Larvae eat holes through parchment. A monk uses an unloved book [[as a cutting board|https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/exeter-book-cutting-board-coaster-poetry]]. Here, a tear opens one page to the gaze of another: a layer­ing that recalls the medieval [[palimpsest|https://www.britannica.com/topic/palimpsest-manuscript]] and fore­sees Jonathan Safran Foer’s //[[Tree of Codes|https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/dec/18/tree-codes-safran-foer-review]]//. The tear runs through an asterism <span class="specchar" style="color:red">⁂</span> set there to fill a void. In place of an orderly accounting of the books of John, Jude, and Revelation, we see a jumble of cross-references on the next page, and [[a sort of erasure poem|https://theartofcompost.com/2014/06/25/exercise-torn-page-1/]]: <div class="specchar" style="margin-left:2em">in<br>let them<br>Sea, and o<br>the cattell,<br> aery creeping ...</div>\ The <span class="specchar" style="color:red">⁂</span> loses one of its company and gains a world of adventitious reference. <div class="nav" style="float:left">[[back|asterisk6]]<span class="fist" style="float:left">[[☜|asterisk6]]</span></div><div class="nav" style="float:right">[[onward|asterisk8]]<span class="fist" style="float:right">[[☞|asterisk8]]</span></div>\ <div class="footrule"> </div>\ <div class="credits"><div class="hanging"><span class="smallcaps">folio: </span> //The Holy Bible, Containing the Old Testament, and the New// ([[USTC 3007322|https://www.ustc.ac.uk/editions/3007322]]), ff. b6r & A1r. Printed in London in 1616 by [[Robert Barker|https://datchethistory.org.uk/datchet-people/robert-barker]].</div>\ <span class="smallcaps">audio:</span> “Dull Stars.” fosel, //[[Dull Stars|http://webbedhandrecords.com/wh176-fosel-dull-stars/]]//. [[CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/]].</div>\ \ <<audio ":playing" pause>><<audio DullStars volume 0 fadeto 0.10>><<audio DullStars loop play>>
<span class="header">[img[assets/images/CRRSlogo.png][https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/]]</span> ![[❧ typographia|START]] !!Asterisk !!!9. an accident shines through it\ <span class="dropcap">T</span>he work of chance upon a text is called //aleatory//, from the Latin <span class="specchar">alea</span>, “dice.” Chance can go to work on a book at any point in its life – from the creation of its paper and ink, to its gradual undoing by damp and flood, fire and smoke, readers and pests. This happy accident occured at the printer’s work table: <span class="wholepage">[img[assets/images/asterisk9_1.jpg][assets/images/asterisk9_1.jpg]]</span>\ !!!!![[see the whole page →|asterisk9a]]<br>[[see the woodcut on the reverse →|asterisk9b]]<br>[[see the book in the catalogue →|https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/8472]] The full-page woodcut opposite Genesis 1, bedecked with sun, moon, and stars, [[shows through|http://printwiki.org/Show-Through]] the leaf. And so the names of Joshua and Judges, Numbers and Ruth, are lit from behind by stars from which the asterisk descends. <div class="nav" style="float:left">[[back|asterisk8]]<span class="fist" style="float:left">[[☜|asterisk8]]</span></div><div class="nav" style="float:right">[[onward|asterisk10]]<span class="fist" style="float:right">[[☞|asterisk10]]</span></div>\ <div class="footrule"> </div>\ <div class="credits"><span class="smallcaps">folio:</span> //The Holy Bible, Containing the Old Testament, and the New// ([[USTC 3007322|https://www.ustc.ac.uk/editions/3007322]]), f. b6v. Printed in London in 1616 by [[Robert Barker|https://datchethistory.org.uk/datchet-people/robert-barker]]. <span class="smallcaps">audio:</span> “Dull Stars.” fosel, //[[Dull Stars|http://webbedhandrecords.com/wh176-fosel-dull-stars/]]//. [[CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/]].</div>\ \ <<audio ":playing" pause>><<audio DullStars volume 0 fadeto 0.10>><<audio DullStars loop play>>
<span class="header">[img[assets/images/CRRSlogo.png][https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/]]</span> ![[❧ typographia|START]] !!Asterisk !!!10. recapitulation\ <span class="dropcap">I</span>n the early modern era, the <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊</span> could still say something’s displaced or missing. It could still mimic a torn edge. It could say something is important, or point you elsewhere on the page, or mark a division in the text, or decorate an empty space. Many of these uses induce you to move your eyes one way or another – to the margin, into a gap, along a tear. Though reflecting, not emitting, light, the <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊</span> is all about seeing. <img src="assets/images/asterisk10_1.jpg" style="width:100%"><div class="figcaption">Joannes de Sacro Bosco, //[[Sphaera Ioannis de Sacrobosco emendata.|https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/8516]]//</div>\ \ Of course, it’s not as if, every time you see <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊</span>, you think //star//. But the connection to heavens is always there for an author or illustrator to lean into. “Add one Ray unto the common Lustre,” Thomas Browne counselled in //[[Christian Morals|https://books.google.com/books?id=hp1KAQAAMAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=browne%20christian%20morals&pg=PA30#v=onepage&q&f=false]]// (1716), “and prove not a Cloud but an Asterisk in thy Region.” His figure reweds astronomy to typography. <div class="nav" style="float:left">[[back|asterisk9]]<span class="fist" style="float:left">[[☜|asterisk9]]</span></div><div class="nav" style="float:right">[[onward|asterisk11]]<span class="fist" style="float:right">[[☞|asterisk11]]</span></div>\ <div class="footrule"> </div>\ <div class="credits"><div class="hanging"><span class="smallcaps">folio: </span>Joannes de Sacro Bosco, //Sphaera Ioannis de Sacrobosco emendata//, f. B8v ([[USTC 694348|https://www.ustc.ac.uk/explore?q&fqr&fqc&fqf&fql&fqs&fqyf&fqyt&fqsn=694348]]). Printed in Cologne in 1591 by [[Goswin Cholinus|https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Cholinus%2c%20Goswin%2c%20%28Colonia%29&c=x]] (CRRS [[QB41 .S4 1591|https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/8516]]).</div>\ <span class="smallcaps">audio:</span> “Dull Stars.” fosel, //[[Dull Stars|http://webbedhandrecords.com/wh176-fosel-dull-stars/]]//. [[CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/]].</div>\ \ <<audio ":playing" pause>><<audio DullStars volume 0 fadeto 0.10>><<audio DullStars loop play>>
<span class="header">[img[assets/images/CRRSlogo.png][https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/]]</span> ![[❧ typographia|START]] !!Asterisk !!!9. an accident shines through it\ //The Holy Bible: Containing the Old Testament and the New//, folio b6r</span>. <div class="wholepage">[img[assets/images/asterisk9a_1.jpg][assets/images/asterisk9a_1.jpg]]<div class="figcaption">Click the image for an exandable view.</div></div>\ \ <div class="nav" style="float:left">[[back|asterisk9]]<span class="fist" style="float:left">[[☜|asterisk9]]</span></div>\ <div class="footrule"> </div>\ <div class="credits"><span class="smallcaps">folio:</span> //The Holy Bible, Containing the Old Testament, and the New// ([[USTC 3007322|https://www.ustc.ac.uk/editions/3007322]]), f. b6r. Printed in London in 1616 by [[Robert Barker|https://datchethistory.org.uk/datchet-people/robert-barker]]. <span class="smallcaps">audio:</span> “Dull Stars.” fosel, //[[Dull Stars|http://webbedhandrecords.com/wh176-fosel-dull-stars/]]//. [[CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/]].</div>\ \ <<audio ":playing" pause>><<audio DullStars volume 0 fadeto 0.10>><<audio DullStars loop play>>
<span class="header">[img[assets/images/CRRSlogo.png][https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/]]</span> ![[❧ typographia|START]] !!Asterisk !!!9. an accident shines through it\ //The Holy Bible: Containing the Old Testament and the New//, folio b6v. <div class="wholepage">[img[assets/images/asterisk9b_1.jpg][assets/images/asterisk9b_1.jpg]]<div class="figcaption">Click the image for an exandable view.</div></div>\ \ <div class="nav" style="float:left">[[back|asterisk9]]<span class="fist" style="float:left">[[☜|asterisk9]]</span></div>\ <div class="footrule"> </div>\ <div class="credits"><span class="smallcaps">folio:</span> //The Holy Bible, Containing the Old Testament, and the New// ([[USTC 3007322|https://www.ustc.ac.uk/editions/3007322]]), f. b6v. Printed in London in 1616 by [[Robert Barker|https://datchethistory.org.uk/datchet-people/robert-barker]]. <span class="smallcaps">audio:</span> “Dull Stars.” fosel, //[[Dull Stars|http://webbedhandrecords.com/wh176-fosel-dull-stars/]]//. [[CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/]].</div>\ \ <<audio ":playing" pause>><<audio DullStars volume 0 fadeto 0.10>><<audio DullStars loop play>>
<span class="header">[img[assets/images/CRRSlogo.png][https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/]]</span> ![[❧ typographia|START]] !!Asterisk !!!5. “and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years”\ //The Holy Bible: Containing the Old Testament and the New//, folio A1r. <div class="wholepage" style="width:100%"><a href="assets/images/asterisk5a_1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="assets/images/asterisk5a_1.jpg" style="width:100%" alt="Folio A1r with the first page of Genesis"></a><div class="figcaption">Click the image for an exandable view.</div></div>\ \ <div class="nav" style="float:left">[[back|asterisk5]]<span class="fist" style="float:left">[[☜|asterisk5]]</span></div>\ <div class="footrule"> </div>\ <div class="credits"><span class="smallcaps">folio:</span> //The Holy Bible, Containing the Old Testament, and the New// ([[USTC 3007322|https://www.ustc.ac.uk/editions/3007322]]), f. A1r. Printed in London in 1616 by [[Robert Barker|https://datchethistory.org.uk/datchet-people/robert-barker]]. <span class="smallcaps">audio:</span> “Dull Stars.” fosel, //[[Dull Stars|http://webbedhandrecords.com/wh176-fosel-dull-stars/]]//. [[CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/]].</div>\ \ <<audio ":playing" pause>><<audio DullStars volume 0 fadeto 0.10>><<audio DullStars loop play>>
<span class="header">[img[assets/images/CRRSlogo.png][https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/]]</span> ![[❧ typographia|START]] !!Asterisk !!!6. give form to the formless\ //The Holy Bible: Containing the Old Testament and the New//, folio b6r. <div class="wholepage" style="width:100%"><a href="assets/images/asterisk6a_1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="assets/images/asterisk6a_1.jpg" style="width:100%" alt="Folio b6r with list of books of the Bible"></a><div class="figcaption">Click the image for an exandable view.</div></div>\ \ <div class="nav" style="float:left">[[back|asterisk6]]<span class="fist" style="float:left">[[☜|asterisk6]]</span></div>\ <div class="footrule"> </div>\ <div class="credits"><span class="smallcaps">folio:</span> //The Holy Bible, Containing the Old Testament, and the New// ([[USTC 3007322|https://www.ustc.ac.uk/editions/3007322]]), f. b6r. Printed in London in 1616 by [[Robert Barker|https://datchethistory.org.uk/datchet-people/robert-barker]]. <span class="smallcaps">audio:</span> “Dull Stars.” fosel, //[[Dull Stars|http://webbedhandrecords.com/wh176-fosel-dull-stars/]]//. [[CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/]].</div>\ \ <<audio ":playing" pause>><<audio DullStars volume 0 fadeto 0.10>><<audio DullStars loop play>>
<span class="header">[img[assets/images/CRRSlogo.png][https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/]]</span> ![[❧ typographia|START]] !!Asterisk !!!7. a tear runs through it\ //The Holy Bible: Containing the Old Testament and the New//, folios b6r & A1r. <div class="wholepage" style="width:100%"><a href="assets/images/asterisk6a_1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="assets/images/asterisk6a_1.jpg" style="width:100%" alt="Folio b6r with list of books of the Bible and folio A1r showing through at lower right corner"></a><div class="figcaption">Click the image for an exandable view.</div></div>\ \ <div class="nav" style="float:left">[[back|asterisk7]]<span class="fist" style="float:left">[[☜|asterisk7]]</span></div>\ <div class="footrule"> </div>\ <div class="credits"><div class="hanging"><span class="smallcaps">folio:</span> //The Holy Bible, Containing the Old Testament, and the New// ([[USTC 3007322|https://www.ustc.ac.uk/editions/3007322]]), ff. b6r & A1r. Printed in London in 1616 by [[Robert Barker|https://datchethistory.org.uk/datchet-people/robert-barker]].</div>\ <span class="smallcaps">audio:</span> “Dull Stars.” fosel, //[[Dull Stars|http://webbedhandrecords.com/wh176-fosel-dull-stars/]]//. [[CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/]].</div>\ \ <<audio ":playing" pause>><<audio DullStars volume 0 fadeto 0.10>><<audio DullStars loop play>>
<span class="header">[img[assets/images/CRRSlogo.png][https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/]]</span> ![[❧ typographia|START]] !!Asterisk !!!11. the little star today\ <span class="dropcap">T</span>oday, the asterisk still marks footnotes. It still rests sometimes in the white space between two blocks of text. It’s used in philology to mark a hypothetical reconstruction (<span class="specchar">PIE *ster-</span>, star), by computer in­ter­faces as a wild card (<span class="specchar">search “starr* night”</span> produces “starry night,” “starred night,” and “starring night”), and informally to perform censorship (<span class="specchar">what the f**k</span>). It stars in the [[grawlix|https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/10/the-grawlix-how-the-katzenjammer-kids-comic-strip-pioneered-the-use-of-typographical-symbols-for-swearing.html]] (<span class="specchar">%@$&*!</span>) comic books use for cursing. It denotes the excited state of an atom (<span class="specchar">A*</span>) and the [[black hole|https://www.space.com/sagittarius-a]] at the centre of the Milky Way (<span class="specchar">Sagittarius A*</span>). <span class="wholepage">[img[assets/images/asterisk11_1.jpg][assets/images/asterisk11_1.jpg]]</span><div class="figcaption">[[Webb's First Deep Field: gravitational lensing by galaxy cluster SMACS 0723.|https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-delivers-deepest-infrared-image-of-universe-yet]]</div>\ \ On 11 July 2022 CE NASA published a picture of the early universe as seen by the James Webb Space Tele­scope. The <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊</span> you see, up and left from the central whorl, is an artefact of the telescope’s lens, and means several things at once. //This is noteworthy. Much remains uncertain. Big empty spaces. More to be found elsewhere.// <div class="nav" style="float:left">[[back|asterisk10]]<span class="fist" style="float:left">[[☜|asterisk10]]</span></div><div class="nav" style="float:right">[[home|home]]<span class="fist" style="float:right">☞</span></div>\ <div class="footrule"> </div>\ <div class="credits"><span class="smallcaps">image:</span> NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team. <span class="smallcaps">audio:</span> “Dull Stars.” fosel, //[[Dull Stars|http://webbedhandrecords.com/wh176-fosel-dull-stars/]]//. [[CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/]].</div>\ \ <<audio ":playing" pause>><<audio DullStars volume 0 fadeto 0.10>><<audio DullStars loop play>>
<span class="header">[img[assets/images/CRRSlogo.png][https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/]]</span> ![[❧ typographia|START]] !!Asterisk !!!8. stars of different sorts\ <span class="dropcap">T</span>he tear in the folio lets us see five <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊</span>s at once: two in the torn asterism on the contents page, one in the text of Gen­esis (<span class="specchar">*male</span>), and two more in the margin (<span class="specchar">*Matth</span>, <span class="specchar">*Chap.</span>). Unlike the <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊</span>s in this paragraph, they’re not all the same. What differences can you see? <div class="wholepage" style="width:100%"><img src="assets/images/asterisk8_1.jpg" style="width:100%" alt="TK"></div>\ You might notice three styles of <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊</span> : \ <ul><li>larger left-leaning stars with six thick arms (the torn <span class="specchar" style="color:red">⁂</span>)</li> <li>a smaller left-leaning star with five thin arms (<span class="specchar">*male</span>)</li> <li>still smaller right-leaning stars with five thick arms (<span class="specchar">*Matth.</span>)</li></ul>\ \ The differences are more than can be explained by broken type, uneven [[impressions|https://www.c82.net/typography/term/impression]], or [[sorts|https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Sort_(typesetting)]] set upside-down. It appears the [[compositor|https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typesetting#Pre-digital_era]] has drawn stars from three different [[typefaces|https://hobancards.com/blogs/thoughts-and-curiosities/difference-between-font-and-typeface]] (not [[fonts|https://hobancards.com/blogs/thoughts-and-curiosities/difference-between-font-and-typeface]]) in setting this text. <div class="row"> <div class="column">[img["assets/images/asterisk8_2.jpg"][hedera1.1]]</div> <div class="column">[img["assets/images/asterisk8_3.jpg"][hedera2.1]]</div> <div class="column">[img["assets/images/asterisk8_4.jpg"][hedera3.1]]</div></div>\ Not as surprising as you might think. Standardization was not yet the rage it became in printing’s industrial age. \ /* Actually, even two <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊</span>s of the same typeface are not identical. Each was presumably cast from the same [[matrix|https://typography.guru/term/matrix-r127/]]. Then it em­barked on its own life of use and weathering and eventual breakage – when it would be thrown in the printer’s [[hellbox|https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/hellbox]] to be melted down and made new. */ \ <div class="nav" style="float:left">[[back|asterisk7]]<span class="fist" style="float:left">[[☜|asterisk7]]</span></div><div class="nav" style="float:right">[[onward|asterisk9]]<span class="fist" style="float:right">[[☞|asterisk9]]</span></div>\ <div class="footrule"> </div>\ <div class="credits"><div class="hanging"><span class="smallcaps">folio:</span> //The Holy Bible, Containing the Old Testament, and the New// ([[USTC 3007322|https://www.ustc.ac.uk/editions/3007322]]), ff. b6r & A1r. Printed in London in 1616 by [[Robert Barker|https://datchethistory.org.uk/datchet-people/robert-barker]].</div>\ <span class="smallcaps">audio:</span> “Dull Stars.” fosel, //[[Dull Stars|http://webbedhandrecords.com/wh176-fosel-dull-stars/]]//. [[CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/]].</div>\ \ <<audio ":playing" pause>><<audio DullStars volume 0 fadeto 0.10>><<audio DullStars loop play>>
<span class="header">[img[assets/images/CRRSlogo.png][https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/]]</span> ![[❧ typographia|START]] !!Asterisk !!!4. tattered edge\ <div style="margin: 0em 4.25em 0em 4.25em">The asterisk is placed against verses which have been omitted,<br>so that what seems to be omitted may shine forth.<br> – Isidore of Seville (6th C. <span style="font-variant:small-caps">ce</span>)</div>\ <span class="dropcap">I</span>n the Middle Ages the asterisk had two main tasks. One in the margin said something was noteworthy. Several in a row marked (as [[Isidore|https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Isidore-of-Sevilla]] says in his //Etymologies//) a gap or rupture in the text. Such a row <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊ ＊ ＊</span> might have mimicked the torn edge of a manuscript leaf. This use persisted into the twentieth century, when three <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊</span>s in a row (a [[dinkus|https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/06/08/ode-to-the-dinkus]]) or a tri­angle (an [[asterism|https://dbpedia.org/page/Asterism_(typography)]]) might fill a gap. A mark that meant //Warning, loss or damage ahead// had mellowed to //Take a break, rest, collect yourself//. <div class="figure" style="width:100%"><img src="assets/images/asterisk4_1.jpg" style="width:100%" alt="Detail of page showing asterism"><div class="figcaption">An asterism in a 1928 introduction to a translation of Marcel Proust’s //Swann's Way//.</div></div> Other marks – bullets <span class="specchar" style="color:red">•</span> , floral hearts <span class="specchar" style="color:red">❦</span> – usually do this work now. Other ancient uses of the <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊</span> are still with us though. In a text message, you might use a pair of asterisks for emphasis <div class="specchar" style="margin-left:2em">that book is *so* god</div>\ or a single one to note an error <div class="specchar" style="margin-left:2em">*good</div>\ <div class="nav" style="float:left">[[back|asterisk3]]<span class="fist" style="float:left">[[☜|asterisk3]]</span></div><div class="nav" style="float:right">[[onward|asterisk5]]<span class="fist" style="float:right">[[☞|asterisk5]]</span></div>\ <div class="footrule"> </div>\ <div class="credits"><span class="smallcaps">image:</span> Lewis Galantierre’s introduction to C.K. Scott Moncrieff’s translation of Marcel Proust’s //Swann's Way//. © Modern Library. <span class="smallcaps">audio:</span> “Dull Stars.” fosel, //[[Dull Stars|http://webbedhandrecords.com/wh176-fosel-dull-stars/]]//. [[CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/]].</div>\ \ <<audio ":playing" pause>><<audio DullStars volume 0 fadeto 0.10>><<audio DullStars loop play>>
<span class="header">[img[assets/images/CRRSlogo.png][https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/]]</span> ![[❧ typographia|START]] !!Thanks and acknowledgements\ Though a text may name one author, it is the work of many minds, hearts, and hands. I could not have made //Typographia// without the kind support and expert help of Laura Fedynyszyn, David Fernández, Randall McLeod, Dustin Meyer, Natalie Oeltjen, Stephen Partridge, and everyone at the Centre for Renaissance and Reform­ation Studies. Also a bow to Alan Galey and AnnaMaria Kalinowski for inducting me in the ways of Twine. – Christopher Patton, curator <div class="nav" style="float:left">[[home|home]]<span class="fist" style="float:left">[[☜|home]]</span></div>\ <div class="footrule"> </div>\ <div class="credits"><span class="smallcaps">audio:</span> “Long Way Home.” Uitgezonderd, //[[Burning Giraffes at Sea|http://webbedhandrecords.com/wh156-uitgezonderd-burning-giraffes-at-sea]]//. [[CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/]].</div>\ \ <<audio ":playing" pause>><<audio Home volume 0 fadeto 0.10>><<audio Home loop play>>
<span class="header">[img[assets/images/CRRSlogo.png][https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/]]</span> ![[❧ typographia|START]] !!Colophon <div style="text-align:center">The text is set by default in [[Optima|https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optima]], headings in [[Gill Sans MT|https://www.flickr.com/photos/36844288@N00/5384653663/in/album-72157624048009412/]]. Images of materials in the CRRS<br>Rare Book Collection were taken with an iPhone SE. Other images are public domain<br>or reproduced with permission or under a [[Creative Commons|https://creativecommons.org/]] license.<br>//Typographia// was developed on [[Twine|https://twinery.org/]] using [[Sugarcube 2.36.1|https://www.motoslave.net/sugarcube/2/]]<br>and is hosted on [[GitHub|https://github.com/]]. This work is licensed<br>under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/?ref=chooser-v1" target="_blank" rel="license noopener noreferrer" style="display:inline-block;">CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.</a></div>\ <div class="figurecentre" style="display:block; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; width:25%"><img src="assets/images/colophon.png" style="width:100%"></div> \ <div style="text-align:center"></div>\ \ <div class="nav" style="float:left">[[home|home]]<span class="fist" style="float:left">[[☜|home]]</span></div> \ <div class="footrule"> </div>\ <div class="credits"><span class="smallcaps">audio:</span> “Long Way Home.” Uitgezonderd, //[[Burning Giraffes at Sea|http://webbedhandrecords.com/wh156-uitgezonderd-burning-giraffes-at-sea]]//. [[CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/]].</div>\ \ <<audio ":playing" pause>><<audio Home volume 0 fadeto 0.10>><<audio Home loop play>>
<span class="header">[img[assets/images/CRRSlogo.png][https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/]]</span> ![[❧ typographia|START]] !!A note from the curator\ <div class="figure" style="width:50%"><img src="assets/images/note_1.jpg" style="width:100%" alt="Detail of folio A1r of King James Bible with asterisks, obelus, pilcrow, and foliated letter highlighted in red"><div class="figcaption">Three [[asterisks|asterisk0]], a pilcrow, an obelus, and some indeterminate<br>foliage, cousin to the hedera or vine leaf.</div></div><span class="dropcap">A</span>n exhibition is a story, or a suite of stories. Some can be told in a straight line. Others are more shrub than tree – more [[rhizome|https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110919111808348]] than taproot – and ask to discover their own shapes. I’ve created //Typographia// on [[Twine|https://twinery.org/]], an open-source platform for creating non-linear narrative games, in that exploratory spirit. I haven’t seen Twine used for an exhibition before. This is a trial run, as the first pages printed in Eu­rope also were. Each story here takes its shape from the glyph it stu­dies. For the asterisk <span style="color:red">＊</span>, born of starlight and pub­lished today, a transit across millennia, with some gravi­tational lensing. Two glyphs are still to come. For the pilcrow <span style="color:red">¶</span> , a lever by which scribe or com­positor partitioned the page, a rectilinear move­ment around one leaf. For the hedera <span style="color:red">❧</span> , born of vegeta­tion that sprawls and ramifies, a branching structure. I should say, the shape, not of glyph in itself, //an sich//, but of the encounter between its mind and my own, with the imaginal fabric of the texts it appears in as backcloth. The cosmic majesty of Genesis. The use and wear of a leaf plucked from a rollicking world history. The voracious encyclopaedism of early mod­ern English herbals. I hope by this mimicry, also through the formal constraints of digital typesetting in Twine, to create a clear yet porous container, one where “heterogeneous ideas [may be] yoked by violence together,” as the Meta­physical poets, whom I admire more than Dr. Johnson did, liked to do. <div style="text-align:center;color:red">❦</div>\ <div style="text-align:center">//Typographia// is preceded by a physical exhibition of the same name,<br>which was on view in the E.J. Pratt Library of Victoria University<br>in the University of Toronto, in the summer of 2022.</div>\ <div style="text-align:center;color:red">❦</div>\ <div style="text-align:center">Christopher Patton is a poet and literary curator.<br>His recent publications include //[[Inanna Scient|http://www.anstrutherpress.com/new-products/inanna-scient-by-christopher-patton]]// (Anstruther 2023),<br>a chapbook of visual poems, and //[[Dumuzi|http://www.gaspereau.com/bookInfo.php?AID=0&AISBN=9781554472116]]// (Gaspereau 2020), a volume of poetry.<br>He teaches in the [[Book & Media Studies Program|https://stmikes.utoronto.ca/program/book-media-studies]] at the University of Saint Michael’s College.<div>\ <div class="nav" style="float:left">[[home|home]]<span class="fist" style="float:left">[[☜|home]]</span></div> \ <div class="footrule"> </div>\ <div class="credits"><span class="smallcaps">folio:</span> //The Holy Bible, Containing the Old Testament, and the New// ([[USTC 3007322|https://www.ustc.ac.uk/editions/3007322]]), f. A1r. Printed in London in 1616 by [[Robert Barker|https://datchethistory.org.uk/datchet-people/robert-barker]]. <span class="smallcaps">audio:</span> “Long Way Home.” Uitgezonderd, //[[Burning Giraffes at Sea|http://webbedhandrecords.com/wh156-uitgezonderd-burning-giraffes-at-sea]]//. [[CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/]].</div>\ \ <<audio ":playing" pause>><<audio Home volume 0 fadeto 0.10>><<audio Home loop play>>
<span class="header">[img[assets/images/CRRSlogo.png][https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/]]</span> ![[❧ typographia|START]] !!Asterisk\ <div class="figure" style="width:45%"><img src="assets/images/asterisk0_1.jpg" style="width:100%" alt="Detail of folio A1r of King James Bible showing asterisks"></div><span class="dropcap">T</span>he first asterisk appears in a Neolithic grave site. Who knows what it meant? The Sumerians made a similar mark <span class="specchar" style="color:red">𒀭</span> calling it <span class="specchar">An</span> for their sky god. As a mark called <span class="specchar">asteriskos</span> <span class="specchar" style="color:red">※</span> “little star” by the Greeks, it jour­neyed across papyrus and calf skin to land on the early mod­ern page – where, as the <span class="specchar">asterisk</span> <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊</span>, it took on many roles. In Robert Barker’s 1616 print­ing of the King James Bible, it works as a reference mark, mov­ing your eyes from the text to a note nearby in the margin. When it moves your gaze an inch or two, is that not a trace of its name­sake’s power, to lift your eyes to the heavens? <div class="nav" style="float:left">[[go back home|home]]<span class="fist" style="float:left">[[☜|home]]</span></div><div class="nav" style="float:right">[[in the beginning|asterisk1]]<span class="fist" style="float:right">[[☞|asterisk1]]</span></div>\ <div class="footrule"> </div>\ <div class="credits"><span class="smallcaps">folio:</span> //The Holy Bible, Containing the Old Testament, and the New// ([[USTC 3007322|https://www.ustc.ac.uk/editions/3007322]]), f. A1. Printed in London in 1616 by [[Robert Barker|https://datchethistory.org.uk/datchet-people/robert-barker]]. <span class="smallcaps">audio:</span> “Dull Stars.” fosel, //[[Dull Stars|http://webbedhandrecords.com/wh176-fosel-dull-stars/]]//. [[CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/]].</div>\ \ <<audio ":playing" pause>><<audio DullStars volume 0 fadeto 0.10>><<audio DullStars loop play>>
<span class="header">[img[assets/images/CRRSlogo.png][https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/]]</span> ![[❧ typographia|START]] !!Welcome\ <span class="dropcap">A</span>rrow and acorn. Dagger and diamond. Fist and fleur-de-lys. The page at the dawn of the print era in Eu­rope teemed with human life. The Christian body appeared in the manicule <span style="color:red; font-size: 110%">☞</span> and pilcrow <span class="specchar" style="color:red">¶</span> , its tools in the obelus <span class="specchar" style="color:red">†</span> and arrow <span class="specchar" style="color:red">→</span> , its landscapes in the hedera <span class="specchar" style="color:red">❧</span> and virgule <span class="specchar" style="color:red">/</span> , its cosmos in the asterisk <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊</span>. Each mark was, to lift a phrase from John Donne, “a little world made cunningly.” Made by a piece of cast-metal type, each mark was unique: no two <span class="specchar" style="color:red">＊</span>s or letters <span class="specchar" style="color:red">A</span> were precisely the same. Each was sculptural, not laid on the paper’s surface, but sunk into its substance. Each belonged to a visual composition (a //mise-en-page//) with debts to a scribal tradition as deep as the new Humanist optimism was bold. And each drew on minds and hands //beyond// Christ­endom – Jewish, Muslim, Asian, Indigenous – met through migration, trade, war, and colonial conquest. <div class="row"> <div class="column">[img["assets/images/title_1.jpg"][asterisk0]]</div> <div class="column"><img src="assets/images/title_2t.jpg" style="width:250px; border-color:lightgrey" alt="detail of an incunabulum showing pilcrow and rubricated capital"></div> <div class="column"><img src="assets/images/title_3t.jpg" style="width:250px; border-color:lightgrey" alt="detail of a book cover showing ivy leaf"></div></div>\ \ <div class="row">\ <div class="column"><div class="nav" style="font-size:115%">[[asterisk|asterisk0]]</div></div> <div class="column"><div class="nav" style="font-size:115%; color:lightgray">pilcrow</div></div> <div class="column"><div class="nav" style="font-size:115%; color:lightgray">hedera</div></div></div>\ Anchored in the [[Rare Book Collection|https://crrs.ca/rare_books/]] of the Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies, //Typographia// offers deep dives into three glyphs found on the printed page between 1482 and 1640 – asking how the type speaks for itself, whatever the text might //also// say, about life, and death, in early modern Europe. !!!!![[curator’s note →|note]]<br>[[acknowledgements →|thanks]]<br>[[sources →|sources]]<br>[[colophon →|colophon]] \ <div class="footrule"> </div>\ <div class="credits"><div class="hanging"><span class="smallcaps">folios:</span> 1. //The Holy Bible, Containing the Old Testament, and the New// ([[USTC 3007322|https://www.ustc.ac.uk/editions/3007322]]), f. b6r. Printed in London in 1616 by [[Robert Barker|https://datchethistory.org.uk/datchet-people/robert-barker]]. 2. [[Ranulf Higden|https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ranulf-Higden]], //Polycronicon// ([[USTC 500054|https://www.ustc.ac.uk/editions/500054]]), f. 291r. Translated by [[John Trevisa|https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195396584/obo-9780195396584-0279.xml]] and [[William Caxton|https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Caxton]], printed in Westminster in 1482 by Caxton.</div>\ <span class="smallcaps">image:</span> Front cover, Philip Melanchthon, //Loci Communes// (CRRS [[BR336 .L6 1546|https://crrs.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/8676]]). <span class="smallcaps">audio:</span> “Long Way Home.” Uitgezonderd, //[[Burning Giraffes at Sea|http://webbedhandrecords.com/wh156-uitgezonderd-burning-giraffes-at-sea]]//. [[CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US|https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/]].</div>\ \ <<audio ":playing" pause>><<audio Home volume 0 fadeto 0.10>><<audio Home loop play>>\
<div class="figurecentre"><img src="assets/images/title_0.png" style="width:100%; align:auto"></div> <div class="title"><strong>[[❦TYPOGRAPHIA❦|start2]]</strong></div> <div class="figurecentre"><img src="assets/images/title_4.png" style="width:100%; align:auto"></div>\ <div style="text-align:center; font-size:150%; line-height:145%"><<type 100ms start 3s>>Click on the title to enter.<</type>></div>\ \ <<audio ":playing" pause>><<audio Home volume 0 fadeto 0.10>><<audio Home loop play>>\
<div class="figurecentre"><img src="assets/images/title_0.png" style="width:100%; align:auto"></div>\ !!<div style="text-align:center; font-size:120%; line-height:145%"><<link "//Being// three takes on<br>the //Printed Page// of Early Modern //Europe,// <br>& the quite strange //Artifice of Writing// generally,<br>by way of several of its //More Peculiar Characters;//<br>with varied & engrossing //Diversions,//<br>throughout." start3>><</link>></div> <div class="figurecentre"><img src="assets/images/title_4.png" style="width:100%; align:auto"></div>\ <div style="text-align:center; font-size:150%; line-height:145%"><<type 100ms start 3s>><span style="color:#6c89d7">Text links</span> <span style="color:#EF8633">change colour</span> when you mouse over them.<</type>>\ <<type 100ms>>Use links and manicules <span style="color:red; font-size: 110%">☜</span> to navigate, not your browser’s BACK button.<</type>></div>\ \ <<audio ":playing" pause>><<audio Home volume 0 fadeto 0.10>><<audio Home loop play>>\
<div class="figurecentre"><img src="assets/images/title_0.png" style="width:100%; align:auto"></div> <div class="title"><strong><<link "I. ASTERISK" home>><</link>></strong></div> <div class="figurecentre"><img src="assets/images/title_4.png" style="width:100%; align:auto"></div>\ <div style="text-align:center; font-size:150%; line-height:145%"><<type 100ms start 3s>>Part 2 Pilcrow and Part 3 Hedera are in progress.<</type>></div>\ \ <<audio ":playing" pause>><<audio Home volume 0 fadeto 0.10>><<audio Home loop play>>\