ABOUT A RECENT ARTICLE: THE PRECEPTS OF PAGE LAYOUT OF SIGISMONDO FANTI

As part of a new approach to codicology, which uses direct observation of the manuscript to analyse the gestures and criteria behind the work of the medieval artisan, we see a growing interest in the few sources concerning those instructions on the mise-en-page of the handwritten book which sanction relations of proportion. A recent contribution (in Scrineum 2013) challenges the interpretation of the recipes we are already familiar with today, and especially that of Fanti, the mathematician from Ferrara. Written in the vernacular, it is a fresh start, which allows us to set his Trattato di Scrittura Theorica et pratica in the wider context of sixteenth-century theorisations, and attempt a definitive interpretation of his Consideratio XVI dedicated to the construction precepts behind the layout of a book.