Detail of marginal note by the corrector Raymond

One bifolium from a commercially-produced manuscript of Guido de Baysio’s Rosarium written and illuminated in Bologna toward the end of the thirteenth century presumably for a wealthy prelate and canon lawyer. See the note in the margin recording that the corrector Raymond had finished proofreading and correcting the 35th quire:“ray[mundus]/f[init] xxxv pe[cia]/ cor[rectus]” The corrector Raymond was paid by the piece, so he carefully recorded the number of peciae or quires that he proofread. The corrections in the margins are doubtless Raymond’s work.

The bifolium witnesses again that commercial manuscript production was a complex process involving numerous specialists, among them scribes, illuminators, decorators, notators, and correctors, each coordinated and paid independently for their work by a contractor.

Given by the late Lawrence Witten to RHR after his lecture on Paris stationers and pecia production given to the Friends of the Beinecke Library, New Haven, Connecticut in May 1984.

R.H. & M.A. Rouse MS 19