Beschrijving

This article presents a statistical study on the effect of re-binding of incunabula on paper thickness. Although it is well known that the original thickness of book blocks of incunabula often decreases as a result of re-binding, the actual effect has not been calculated before. In this contribution, the authors first point out the relevance of studying paper thickness and the main studies on the subject. They then discuss some methodological challenges in measuring paper thickness, which are closely related to the morphology of handmade paper and the so-called compression effect. The second part of this article discusses the method and corpus of this statistical study and presents the results. This research confirms that the paper used to produce incunabula became gradually thinner during the second half of the fifteenth century. It also shows that the paper thickness in copies rebound in the nineteenth century or later decreased by about 10% compared to that in (near) contemporary bindings. In addition, this study seems to indicate that the nature of handmade paper changed during the second half of the fifteenth century.