A holograph manuscript is a document written entirely in the hand of its author. Every word, every correction, every marginal note is in the author’s own handwriting — no secretary, no copyist, no amanuensis was involved. The term is precise and frequently misused. What It Is In an era before typewriters and word processors, most literary, legal, and official documents were produced through some form of dictation or copying. Authors drafted; scribes transcribed.

Incunabula (singular: incunabulum) are books printed in Europe before January 1, 1501 — the products of the first fifty years of the printing press. They sit at the boundary between manuscript culture and the print era, sharing characteristics of both, and they are among the most studied and most carefully preserved objects in the history of Western civilization. What They Are Johannes Gutenberg’s introduction of movable type printing to Europe around 1450 did not immediately produce books that looked like modern printed books.

Recto and verso are the two sides of a leaf in a manuscript, book, or document. Recto is the front — the right-hand page in an open book. Verso is the back — the left-hand page. The terms are standard in bibliography, archival description, manuscript studies, and art history, and they appear constantly in catalogue entries and scholarly footnotes. What They Are In Western manuscript and book tradition, leaves (individual sheets) are numbered rather than pages.