Early Modern Printed Artefacts: Form and materiality of hand-press works housed at the rare book collection of the University of Brasília’s Central Library

ABSTRACT In this article, I argue that early modern printed artifacts reflect cultural patterns, whilst being a result of the limits imposed by economic decisions and technique. By articulating two investigative scales, I highlight the analytical gain that the study of the materiality of early modern printed artefacts and their collective graphic production and editing processes, as well as of the modes of textual organization and visual information recorded on paper over time provide to historical research. On the one hand, the article introduces readers to the general aspects of production of printed material in the period. On the other hand, since hand press’ printed artefacts often exhibit specific configurations and marks originated at different periods of time, the article examines the graphic and material features of paradigmatic examples printed in the European continent, in the 16th and 17th centuries. Most of the analysed materials are housed at the rare book collection of the University of Brasília’s Central Library.

摘要
本文主张，早期近代印刷制品（early modern printed artifacts）既映现特定文化范式，同时亦是经济决策与技术局限共同催生的产物。本文通过确立两种研究维度，阐明了针对早期近代印刷制品的物质属性、集体图形制作与编辑流程，以及随时间留存于纸张之上的文本组织模式与视觉信息展开研究，可为历史研究带来显著的分析增益。
一方面，本文向读者介绍该时期印刷物料生产的整体概况。另一方面，鉴于手工印刷机产出的印刷制品往往带有不同时期形成的特定形制与印记，本文针对16至17世纪欧洲大陆印制的典型样本，对其图形特征与物质属性展开考察。本次分析的多数馆藏材料均藏于巴西利亚大学中央图书馆的善本馆藏之中。