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Comment by ogogmad | Hacker News Reader

Read the preface to the 1st edition of this thing, and prepare for your mind to be blown: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douay%E2%80%93Rheims_Bible

Keep clicking "next" on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1609_Doway_Old_Testament....

In summary, they (the authors of Douay-Rheims) based their bible translation on Jerome's 4th century Latin translation because they believed that the extant Greek and Hebrew versions had been corrupted by "Iewes and Heretikes".

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Why do pages end on a line with a single word set flush right?

That's a preview of the first word of the next page. I guess it helps to switch between pages more smoothly.

That's the catchword, the first word of the next page. It helps with keeping the pages in the correct order when binding the book. It could also be an aid when reading aloud, to give the reader one word of "buffer" when turning the page.

I would guess it is to aid a speaker reading aloud so as not to have an awkward pause between pages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reclamans

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catchword

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kustode_(Buchherstellung)

Not sure what am I looking for, but damn, the typography and typesetting of this 400 year old book is mind blowing.

On page 3 the mix of double 'V's for 'W', 'u' for 'v', and 'V' for 'U' ('IESVS' at the top) is quite intriguing.

Interesting to note also the use of ã as shorthand for an, i.e. "the reſidue is in hãd" -> "the residue is in hand"

Any relation to Spanish ñ ?

W, v and j were still pretty novel letters at that point. j was typically used as a final form for i/j so you will see things like the roman numeral for 3 represented as iij. V tended to be used for U/V in capitals and u for u/v in lowercase. W was often not a letter that was part of a typefont and writing VV or vv was the only way to represent it in print. The sixteenth century was the point where u and i became the vowel forms and V and j became the consonant forms. Later Latin is inconsistent in its use of u/v and i/j, right down to dictionaries. I remember having difficulty with my pocket Latin dictionary in college because I would often forget that iam was listed as jam in it (and similar instances of an initial consonantal i).

Yes, but there are 'w's in the text. Mixed in the same sentence in one case with a 'vv'.

> ...we ſend you here...you receiued the New...therof shal not now...

> ...impediments, which hitherto haue long hindered this vvorke...

I would guess it's to justify the text. People would also add/remove unnecessary vowels to fit a line better.

That seems likely. Some early typefaces included wider and narrower versions of some letters to enable justification. Arabic typography does this by allowing, e.g., ﻧـﺪ in place of ﻧﺪ (not a real word, in case you’re puzzling over it, I know more about the letters than the language), where there is an extension to the connecting line between letters.

I think, that Gutenberg’s type had multiple versions of letters for this purpose, but I’m going by vague decades-old memories now.

The printer likely had a limited set of types[1] from which to construct the page. If a page was unusually W-heavy, they probably ran out of W blocks, and substituted VV.

Also, V was considered "just another shape for U" for a long time.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sort_(typesetting)

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