In a recent blogpost, I wrote about some of my early impressions and experiences researching the 1616 utopian novel Histoire du grand et admirable royaume d'Antangil incogneu jusques a present à tous historiens et cosmographes (History of the great and admirable kingdom of Antangil, unknown until the present by all historians and cosmographers). Since then, I have had cause to delve deeper into structure of the book, and the book as an object - mainly in order to compare its thematic division with similar works, and to see how much of the novel was dedicated to military matters.
One detail that struck me with particular force during this work, was how the typography of the of a book printed in 1616 retained many of the same features of medieval manuscript culture that was carried over into the first printed European books. Granted, I always tend to emphasise continuity and to eschew the common medieval/early modern divide, but I was pleasantly surprised to see how the abbreviations from the Middle Ages were retained. One passage that demonstrated the situation particularly well is the one illustrated below, from a chapter on the exercises of the gendarmerie in times of peace. The passage describes how the soldiers are promised to be liberally bestowed with "[charges] et honneurs, venans à se monstrer de plus en plus braves, genereux et fideles" (responsibilities and honours, coming to show themselves off as more and more brave, generous and faithful). I am amused by this aspect of early seventeenth typography, and especially because this makes it actually easier for me to read the text, unaccustomed as I am to read French and seventeenth-century material.
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