Post-Production Interventions
Although "fixity" is one of the characteristics that Elizabeth Eisenstein ascribes to the early modern printing press, book production does not end with the printed sheet. Instead, post-production practices can have a significant impact on the text as we receive it today. This page describes two sites of post-production interventions in the Advertencias: a duplicated folio, and an excised passage.
The two folio fourteens
A brief perusal of volume one of the Advertencias para los Confessores de los Naturales reveals an error in foliation: the number 14 appears twice, on two subsequent leaves in the text.
The first leaf 14 follows, as it should, leaf 13. It begins:
The second leaf 14 follows immediately from the first. It begins:¶Si el penitente quiſiere nombrar en la cõfeſsion al cõplice del delicto, en ninguna manera lo permita el confeſſor, por que peccaria grauamente ſi lo permitieſſe, como enſeñan Doctores graues.
¶El confeſſor a cuyos pies vìnieren Indios de obraje, procure ante todas coſas acabar cõ los amos y dueños, que les perdonen lo que les han cogido, y apañado de ſu casa: pues hablando moralmente pocos ay que no hurten algo, en los dichos lugares: y eſtan caſi impoſibilitados de poder ſatisfazer, y con eſto podran abſoluer a ſus penitentes.
What's going on here? It's clear that this is not a case of duplicated leaves, which would require both pages to be identical. Nor is it simply a case of inaccurate counting (calling two leaves "14" when there should only be one). We know this because of a comparison in the quality of the paper between the two leaves. Across all copies - including the copy displayed here - leaf 14 (2) shows discoloration from age that is not seen on leaf 14 (1). This suggests that these pages come from a different sheet of paper than leaf 14 (1). In fact, the mottling extends through leaf 17 before the paper returns to its ordinary condition, suggesting that this gathering was printed on different paper from the rest of the book.
The signature marks at the bottom of the page provide a clue to this story. The Advertencias was printed in octavo, which means that the book is printed on a sheet that is then folded into eight leaves (16 pages) and bundled together for binding. In this book, the first four leaves of each gathering receive a signature mark on the base of the recto page. When we examine the bundle that contains the double Folio 14s, however, we find that it contains nine leaves.
A further clue is found in some exemplars of the Advertencias. Made invisible by the processes of digitization are the stubs of two leaves bound into the book just prior to the second folio 14, and cut out after binding.
While there are many reasons why several leaves might have been removed, the simplest explanation suggests that an entire leaf was omitted during the process of printing and foliation. To resolve the problem, our printers removed three leaves from the book (folios 15, 16, and 17) and replaced them with a four-leaf gathering which included the second leaf, numbered 14.
[Thanks to Dr. Michael Winship for help with this analysis.]
The Excised Lines
The Advertencias closes with three kinds of back matter: two indices (the "Index Locorvm Commvnivm" and the "Index Rervm et Sententiarvm Memorabilivm") and several leaves of errata. Our focus is on the second paragraph of the second page of the "Index Rervm" (folio 3), which reads:
Reading the book in its material form makes explicit what is slightly obscured in the digital facsimile: a correction has been pasted over the original page, rewriting the citation: "Omnimodã Adria. 6. Fratribus Medicantib 9 conce|sã."
Why does the correction exist? The temptation is to ascribe the silencing of the text to some kind of censorship, perhaps a moment of Lutheran sentiment, the kind of sentiment most likely to shut down a press during the Mexico's early colonial period. But the nature of this correction allows for positive proof of the answer. The copy held by Tulane University has no correction, showing only the original text. Here we see that the glued-on phrase
Covers up or corrects the following statement:
Why was this correction made? We'll need a better Latinist and book historian to answer that question. We invite responses from our readers to finish this analysis.
Eandem auctoritatem habent Prouinciales Ordinum Menidcantium, & quibus ipſi cõmiſserint per Omnimodã Adria. 6. Fratribus Medicantib 9 conceſsã. Vide in Elencho. I. par. ver. Abſolucion y Abſoluer. ſub ſinem.
Reading the book in its material form makes explicit what is slightly obscured in the digital facsimile: a correction has been pasted over the original page, rewriting the citation: "Omnimodã Adria. 6. Fratribus Medicantib 9 conce|sã."
Why does the correction exist? The temptation is to ascribe the silencing of the text to some kind of censorship, perhaps a moment of Lutheran sentiment, the kind of sentiment most likely to shut down a press during the Mexico's early colonial period. But the nature of this correction allows for positive proof of the answer. The copy held by Tulane University has no correction, showing only the original text. Here we see that the glued-on phrase
Omnimodã Adria. 6. Fratribus Medicantib 9 conceſsã.
Covers up or corrects the following statement:
Pauli. 3. Bullam que incipit, Altitudo diuini Conſilij.
Why was this correction made? We'll need a better Latinist and book historian to answer that question. We invite responses from our readers to finish this analysis.
