A world in a book

[ksmith]

Literally:

A manuscript dated back to 1293 from Italy was sent to the Istituto Centrale per il Restauro e la Conservazione del Patrimonio Archivistico e Librario (ICPAL) in Rome for restoration [7]. The volume is composed of 222 sheets divided into six gatherings with a binding made of parchment. It was written on Arabic paper made of linen and was characterized by a singular and never described deterioration phenomenon that gave the paper a dramatically felted aspect, especially in the margins.

The article goes on to describe how the beasts in the paper were identified.

I will add that there is something very Discworld/Hitchhiker's Guide about an ecosystem colonizing an ancient manuscript. Do they have wars? Elections? Football matches? A national anthem?

Comments

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering if different libraries in different countries, or even different cities/towns, would develop different ecosystems? Could the wildlife in the paper even be used to identify a particular library?

[e-moon60.livejournal.com]

They should...at least, in some areas I'd imagine there'd be a different ecology with different initial attacks on the paper. Then again, books are handled by different people, each of whom will transfer something to the paper.

I'm reminded of the piece in one of John McPhee's books, about the FBI's soil analysis people who were able to trace the different soils on the car of the fellow who shot Adolf Coors in Colorado, when the car ended up in New Jersey, proving it was that car. Would be fascinating if, as the science progresses, you could determine not only where a book came from, where it was stored longest, but what people (not identity, necessarily, but origin) had handled it. "The fungal-bacterial symbiots G.sp. and G2.sp2. are known only from a 20 km x 30 km area in northern Spain where they're associated with chestnut/oak forests used by wild geese in fall migration...their presence in artifacts from locations as remote as Finland and Greece has been shown to indicate contact with humans from that area. This book, found in a box in the attic of a house in Amsterdam, and apparently undisturbed throughout the 19th and 20th c., must have been handled by someone from that area..."

E.