The Manuscript Tradition of the Islamic West by Umberto Bongianino;

Author:Umberto Bongianino;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781474499613
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Final remarks

At the end of this chapter on the apogee of Maghribī book culture in the sixth/twelfth century, it is important to stress that the palaeographic observations just presented should be ideally combined with a systematic study of the materials employed in these manuscripts, which has not been carried out for want of the necessary equipment and authorisations. In particular, significant data could emerge from the analysis of the type and quality of paper folios and of the methods followed by Maghribī scribes for preparing the writing surfaces, since both aspects seem to depart noticeably from Mashriqī practices. The wide range of papers represented in the corpus, of varying thickness, colour and only featuring zigzag marks in a minority of cases, share nevertheless the same suppleness and porous texture, in contrast with the starchy and glossy aspect of coeval eastern papers. Especially during the second half of the century, the increased clarity, uniformity and perpendicularity in the arrangement of laid and chain lines seem to reveal the use of rigid moulds, possibly already fitted with metal wire. As recently pointed out by Jean-Louis Estève, however, this point still needs to be scientifically proven.396 Because the ribbed pattern imparted by the manufacturing process is much more visible in these less treated papers, it seems that Maghribī copyists, instead of using ruling boards like their Mashriqī colleagues, simply continued to score the margins of the textbox in dry pen – a technique borrowed from parchment manuscripts – and then wrote following the laid lines imprinted in the folios, at regular intervals. In the manuscripts of smaller format, where folios are folded in octavo and laid lines are arranged vertically (e.g. items 109, 148, 158 and 196) the copyists may have followed the chain lines instead. In particularly fine manuscripts such as item 187 and 208, each line of text was scored individually before filling the text box with script (Figure 4.34). According to al-Qalalūsī’s treatise, Andalusī copyists determined the size of text boxes on the basis of semicircles, presumably traced with a compass, and fixed the measurements on the page with small dots (‘nuqaṭ’).397 The beginning and end of each line were equally marked by small dots or needle pricks, a statement that seems supported by the traces left in some manuscripts, such as item 158.

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