Post date: Feb 19, 2017 7:42:14 PM
Having done the manuscript reading immediately after Shinner's assigned reading, my mind immediately went to comparisons. In Petrarch's letters, he seems to enjoy rewriting the letters of Cicero as a way to spend his time and live out the rest of his life. Probably not my idea of lazy Sunday afternoon but whatever makes him happy. However, Petrarch probably also did not spend 6 hours a day copying letters, I assume but he seemed to be a very eccentric dude. The manuscript making made the case that being a scribe profits the mind but hurts the body. The life of a scribe sounds awful: little sunlight, hand cramps, working in the cold, and hundreds of other little things that sum up to this job sounding awful. Look at this along with the lengthy processes to create the ink, paper, binding supplies, and writing instruments for the books along with the high level of intricacy people put into them. This made me beg the question: why do this?
In my life, I don't think I have ever cared about a book very much. The story yes but the physical book? Not really. I've dropped them to the ground so I wouldn't have to go downstairs, left them in the sun after being outside, and spilled hundreds of things over my assorted collection. Now imagine that book took years to produce instead of maybe an hour. While today we let almost anything become books, back then it was selective and people really cared. I can connect with anyone I want today or look up information about anything. Back then, books were your connection to the world. They were an art piece, a home for their information to live in whose beauty and craft reflected that. Petrarch understood the connection Cicero's letters had to him and reverenced that aspect of them.