LavaCon keynote: But Father, I'm Goldleafing as Fast as I Can!

“ButFather,I’mGold-LeafingasFastasICan!”

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Velocity

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Publicationtime,years

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Copy 1Copy 2Copy 3Copy 4

Velocitywinsoverartisticmerit.

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Cost

❖ Manual labor (scribes, illuminators)

❖ Materials (goldleaf, pigments)

❖ Vellum

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Beforetheprintingpress,bookswerealuxuryitem.

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Costcontainment

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Costcontainment

❖ Less manual labor

❖ Fewer costly materials

❖ Paper

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And,ofcourse…movabletype!

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Personalization

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LuttrellPsalter

Sir Geoffrey Luttrell, wife Agnes Sutton, and daughter-in-law

Abookwithoutpersonalization?Ridiculous.

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BooksinEurope

@sarahokeefe #lavaconhttp://www.hrc.utexas.edu/educator/modules/gutenberg/books/legacy/

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By Tentotwo - Own workData from: Buringh, Eltjo; van Zanden, Jan Luiten: "Charting the “Rise of the West”: Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe, A Long-Term Perspective from the Sixth through Eighteenth Centuries", The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 69, No. 2 (2009), pp. 409–445 (416–417, tables 1&2), CC BY-SA 3.0, https://

commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17678764

That’s a logarithmic scale!

Better

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WinnersafterGutenberg

❖ Printers

❖ Literacy

❖ Information dissemination

❖ Newspapers (150 years later)

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Artisticmeritlosesout…

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