![]() ![]() There were also more sophisticated carousels available to the medieval reader: some book wheels were fitted with two rotating platforms. St Jerome shown as bible translator, while consulting sources on book wheel (Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine, 1339, A f. While this scene is very appropriate given that the Church Father is known to have consulted a great deal of sources for the production of his Vulgate Bible, including Hebrew manuscripts, it clearly concerns medievalization of an ancient scene. Jerome, that revered bible translator, is shown sitting behind a single-platform book wheel consulting various source texts. Figure 4 shows a woodcut from a late-fifteenth-century incunabulum (an early printed book) containing a bible with commentary ( here is another example from an incunabulum). (Curiously, some carousels were designed with an arm, enabling the user to “swing” the platform closer, as this example shows.) This relatively plain design continued until the end of the medieval period, and even beyond. The images shown so far share two striking features: the book carousel appears to consist of a single platform and the device was small enough to place on top of one’s desk. Petrarch sitting at a desk with a book carousel placed nearby (Darmstadt, Universität- und Landesbibliothek, MS 101, datable to c. This carousel is clearly in heavy use! Figure 3. However, the platform also holds a roll, by the looks of it, as well as loose pieces of paper. As in Figure 2, an open book is present on the platform additionally, a red copy with the clasps unhooked lies at the ready. More sources are nearby, placed on the book wheel, which can be consulted simply by reaching over. Here the author is reading, not writing: Petrarch uses both hands to thumb through the book as if looking for certain information. This carousel is placed on the desk, although the image shows this less clearly. Here, too, an author is seen at work with a book wheel nearby. SourceĪ similar scene is observed in Figure 3, which is found in a copy of Petrarch’s De viris illustribus kept in the University Library in Darmstadt. Cicero composing a work sitting at this desk (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canon. These would presumably be placed on the wheel when they were needed. ![]() Additional books are present in a book cupboard nearby. Here the carousel is placed in arm’s reach and contains various open books: the author merely has to turn the platform – carefully! – to consult them. This is most clearly observed in the depiction of a writing Cicero in the Bodleian Library manuscript (Figure 2). ![]() One is that the carousel stands on top of the desk, usually at the far end, where it is out of the way. These book wheels share some striking features. Early depictions of this “plain” model are seen in Figure 2 (from 1383) and Figure 3 (from c. Among the earliest depictions are carousels shown with a single deck, providing room for no more than four to six tomes (although those with room for only two books also existed, as seen here). The book carousel enabled readers to have multiple books at hand, including copies that were opened to a relevant page. The difference lies in the number of shelves the device was fitted with, and thus in the carousel’s capacity. While being careful of the fact that medieval images may not necessarily be a truthful depiction of reality, it appears that during this early period there are two clearly distinguishable designs available. When precisely this device became available to medieval readers is hard to deduce, but the oldest specimens I was able to find date from the fourteenth century. Near the end of the Middle Ages a device came into service that helped avid readers like Christine: the book carousel or book wheel. The author Christine de Pisan shown as a reader, book clutter in fronts of her (Brussels, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 9009-11, 15th century). Figure 1 shows the French author Christine de Pisan, who is often shown while working in her study ( here is an interesting article on the iconography), sitting behind a desk cluttered by books. Readers, however, faced bigger challenges, since many needed more than two books open at the same time, which produced clutter and frantic searches for particular information. In contrast, translators would sometimes position two surfaces next to one another, one presumably for the original text, the other for the translation (see the striking images here and here). Scribes would place two desk surfaces stacked vertically, one for the book that was copied from, the other for the copy (image here). Scribes and translators developed work-arounds for these space issues, as I have shown in a blog post on medieval desktops. It is not easy to manage desk space when working with often large and clunky medieval books. Medieval readers, especially studious ones, must have cursed their desks from time to time. ![]()
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