STRUMENTI SCRITTORI. - To produce writing (v.) various writing implements have been used over time, which also vary in relation to the material intended to receive the letters. Thus epigraphic writings are normally produced by the chisel; graffiti by a hard, pointed instrument that is mostly improvised, wall writings by charcoal, by a brush or by a small stick dipped in color, and the cursive scripts on wax tablets by the stylus (a short rod of cylindrical form, pointed at one end and bevelled into a spatula at the opposite end: first of iron, then of bronze, bone, ivory, etc.). For ink writings, however, there was a transition from the reed pen to the quill.

WRITING IMPLEMENTS - Stili and case found in the excavations of Minturno.(phot. Istituto di Patologia dei Liberi)

The reed pen consisted of a stalk of cane, sharpened at the tip and cut with a slit. It seems to have originated in the East, but its use was very widespread in the Greek-Roman world and up to the early years of the Middle Ages. Archaeological finds have shown that the ancients also used metal pens, but modelled on the type of the reed pen. The adoption of the bird's quill (especially of goose), which offered the advantage of greater elasticity, is traced back to around the 4th century A.D., and had a very long duration. It was supplanted only after the introduction of the metal nib, fitted to a wooden holder, manufactured in Birmingham in 1826 by the Englishman Perry.

The ink used in antiquity was made with lampblack or charcoal mixed with water and gum; metallic ingredients (iron sulphate) began to be used only later (there are many medieval recipes on the subject). Red ink was also used exceptionally, but almost only for titles and chapter initials; gold and silver on a purple ground are encountered from the beginning in Byzantine codices, but appear from the 5th century also in Latin texts; only in the late Middle Ages are blue and green inks encountered sporadically, for initials.

The writing material was kept by the scribe in the so-called theca libraria or calamarium (from which, improperly, our "inkwell"), together with a knife (scalprum) that served to sharpen the cane, the ink container (atramentarium-scriptorium), the pumice for smoothing the parchment, the sponge for any erasures and the awl for the dry ruling of the pages.

WRITING IMPLEMENTS - S. s. The evangelist St. Mark in the act of dipping the reed pen into the ink. Miniature from cod. Casanat. 165 (formerly G. IV. 1, and even earlier A. R. V. 33. 1) <em>Evangelia (graece)</em>, palimpsest 1 — WRITING IMPLEMENTS - S. s. The evangelist St. Mark in the act of dipping the reed pen into the ink. Miniature from cod. Casanat. 165 (formerly G. IV. 1, and even earlier A. R. V. 33. 1) *Evangelia (graece)*, palimpsest 12th cent. (earlier writing late 11th or early 12th cent.), f. 48r - Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense.(phot. Enc. Catt.)

Bibliography7 works

BIBL.: F. Ebert, Zur Handschriftenkunde, I, Leipzig 1825; A. Angelucci, Del materiale e degli strumenti per scrivere usati dagli antichi, Milan 1882, pp. 90-109; W. Wattenbach, Das Schriftwesen im Mittelalter, 3rd ed., Leipzig 1896, pp. 221-75; C. Paoli, Programma scolastico di paleografia latina e di diplomatica, II: Materie scrittorie e librarie, 3rd ed., Florence 1913, pp. 66-86; K. Löffler, Einführung in die Handschriftschubende, Leipzig 1920, see index; F. G. Kenyon, Books and readers in ancient Greece and Rome, Oxford 1932; C. Marechal, L'origine des instruments d'écriture, in La chronique graphique, 9 (1934), pp. 2415-18.

Renzo Frattarolo

@incollection{ec11_strumenti_scrittori, author = {Frattarolo, Renzo}, title = {Strumenti Scrittori}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XI}, pages = {1427--1430}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1953}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/strumenti-scrittori} }

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Writing Implements

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