The artist who painted the initials in this #Renaissance Italian manuscript (@subugoe Cod. MS philol. 116) painted this A upside down so that it now looks like a V. An A was added in the margin as a correction. Did the artist work upside-down, and if so, why?
Pre-modern books are great records of human error and therefore of historic working practices.
@litteracarolina@subugoe@medievodons@histodons@historikerinnen
I guess, the pages were only much later bound into a book? Then, he might have worked upside down. For a right-handed artist, the hand wouldn't lie on the ink of the text but next to the parchment. Thus, the risk of leaving stains on the text is minimized... 🤔
Fascinating.
If deliberate, was it an act of rebellion, of anarchic leanings?
Or a protest against the level of his (not her) 'honorarium'?
Or a challenge to see if the book were to have any readers? Ever?
Simple error seems more unlikely than any of the above?