Book Chapter

Script as Image: Visual Acuity in the Script of Poggio Bracciolini

  • Philippa Sissis

The fact that the graphic substance of writing oscillates between text and image is a potential which writing carries in itself from the very beginning. Every graphic trace on the manuscript page relates to the conventions of time in a way that is determined by the scribe. This becomes particularly tangible when the conventions are deliberately and systematically broken and replaced by new ones on the basis of a concrete concept. By introducing the humanistic minuscule, a script developed on the basis of the historical model of the Carolingian minuscule, Poggio Bracciolini and his mentors and friends Coluccio Salutati and Niccolò Niccoli, created philologically revised copies of the texts of classical authors in what they called littera antiqua, the new old script. This paper wants to show how the conscious incorporation of elements of historical manuscripts and their transformation into a specifically humanistic product makes use of the graphical potential of script and mise-en-page in order to translate a humanistic discourse into SchriftBild.

  • Keywords:
  • Littera antiqua,
  • iconicity of script,
  • artifact,
  • rhetoric,
  • visual arts,
  • layout,
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Philippa Sissis

University of Hamburg, Germany

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  • Publication Year: 2020
  • Pages: 119-148
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2020 Author(s)

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  • Publication Year: 2020
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
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Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Script as Image: Visual Acuity in the Script of Poggio Bracciolini

Authors

Philippa Sissis

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/978-88-6453-968-3.10

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2020

Copyright Information

© 2020 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

Poggio Bracciolini and the Re(dis)covery of Antiquity: Textual and Material Traditions

Book Subtitle

Proceedings of the Symposium Held at Bryn Mawr College on April 8-9, 2016

Editors

Roberta Ricci

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

220

Publication Year

2020

Copyright Information

© 2020 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/978-88-6453-968-3

ISBN Print

978-88-6453-967-6

eISBN (pdf)

978-88-6453-968-3

Series Title

Atti

Series ISSN

2239-3307

Series E-ISSN

2704-6230

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