The evolution of a singular paratext: the latin subscriptiones

Abstract

The history of Latin subscriptiones discloses alterations in both their frequency and the type of information they transmit, hence also in their function. In the beginning they provided brief data with a practical purpose: the identification of the content of a particular book. In the Late Antiquity their number increases and they carry a bigger volume of information, but what mainly gains relevance is the individuals that sign them, becoming an instrument of social autorepresentation. Nevertheless, in a later period these subscriptiones from the Late Antiquity keep being copied in new manuscripts and they lose their initial relation with a concrete volume: they become paratexts that contribute to provide prestige not only to a particular book but to an author or an oeuvre.