The Oldest Book - Objectivity 283

We visit the Royal Astronomical Society to look at the oldest book in their collections. More links below ↓↓↓
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Check out the Royal Astronomical Society website: ras.ac.uk
Featuring Sian Prosser from the Royal Astronomical Society speaking with Brady.
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Films by James Hennessy and Brady Haran
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[@jcortese3300]

You know, looking at the indentations for the large red letters, I wonder if that's where the habit of indenting to mark paragraphs came from. We don't do the fancy letters anymore, but the habit of indentation to mark a new paragraph has stuck with us.

[@_D_P_]

I've never heard the names Foethon and Vesper before. That old book actually taught me something. It's interesting that obsolete science books, given enough time, become linguistic archaeology books.

[@christopherellis2663]

Vesper is the evening star. ( Venus at dusk) Lucifer is Venus at dawn.

[@ferretyluv]

Why do you think ASOIAF has some weird names? It’s reconstructing lost names.

[@fluxpistol3608]

Yeah it's called linguistic drift

[@Neptoid]

At the trailing edge of culture

[@phileo_ss]

How could it be in such beautiful condition? Brilliant!

[@VincentGroenewold]

I'd guess that, by luck, the book has been kept all these years with almost no reading in storage. In perfect conditions.

[@iambiggus]

Thank you Brady, and Dr Sian Prosser! Lovely presentation!

[@forthrightgambitia1032]

It is a shame this didn't mention one of my favourite words: incunabula. Which is any book that was printed before 1501. And this book is an example thereof.

[@salmiakki5638]

Why is there such a specific denomination?

[@forthrightgambitia1032]

@@salmiakki5638 Because books were only printed in low numbers before 1500 and only for a few years. So for collectors these books have a especially high value and tend to be categorised together. They're to book collectors what say the Penny Black is to stamp collectors.

[@OnkelPeters]

That’s a great word! ‘Cradle print’ in Norwegian.

[@rtpoe]

"Incunabula" = An ambulance in the rear-view mirror......

[@Carnage2018]

Better quality than my textbook

[@likebot.]

Is this Isadore, the author, the same man who is the patron saint of databases, agriculture and information?

[@ArturdeSousaRocha]

Yes

[@markanderson1088]

Ahhh my morning is made. Thank you brady

[@LunteBooks]

Fantastic! Love the script and red initials, and the woodcut diagrams are absolutely beautiful. Thank you for sharing!

[@williamcollins4049]

Ah that just so lovely.What a way to start the new year. This book is such a testament to the skill, craft and art in early printing.

[@Skukkix23]

I just wanna say that Günther Zainer was pronounced absolutely spot on. If you only played the sample of the name I would have never knew it was an english person speaking. I love that.

[@sgtommyc]

I was sure that they said Günther Steiner, but surely he's not THAT old *LOL*

[@ConnorHay]

Jeez, the book’s in even better condition than the label! Heck, I’ve bought new books that were more faded than that!

[@eloquentlight]

What an absolute delight to see Sian! She is a gem and a wonderful librarian and scholar!

[@465maltbie]

That is in great shape, thanks for sharing. Charles

[@gautrstafr]

1472 !! that's quite an accomplishment to have such an old book in such a great shape, I can just imagine how books like this in similar collections have been lost to fires and water damage.

[@PopeLando]

When Brady says "the oldest object in the collection", I'm certain that he's wrong, happy that's corrected in the title. Although I'd be surprised if the RAS didn't also have some older manuscripts. But in any case, surely the Royal Astronomical Society of the United Kingdom must have been near the head of the queue to get a moon rock?

[@iteerrex8166]

For a 2024-1472=552 years old book, even the page corners are sharp, crisp, flat, and no discoloration.

[@VampireSquirrel]

really shows how disposable our lives and everything we own have become, technology back then was really meant to last!

[@iteerrex8166]

@@VampireSquirrel Yup, but it’s by design, there’s much more money in disposables. And the permanent ones gets the designed obsolescence treatment.

[@xyz.ijk.]

Beautiful

[@TheyCallMeNewb]

This is in a condition that it almost shouldn't be. An important find!

[@TheGlebeLaird]

Any idea why some first letters after an illuminated letter, in typeface, have a vertical red line through them? Great video! Thanks.

[@scotthannan8669]

This is the same book I used to locate the lost city of Atlantis since the Stargate symbols were hand-drawn clearly on page 17.

[@ericdanielski4802]

Nice video.

[@Android480]

I wish I could read Latin. I would buy a reprint of this in a heartbeat

[@curtisdaniel9294]

You could do video on some of the various diagrams in the book, other than the geocentric one, that was easily interpreted. 😊

[@christopherellis2663]

I love pre-Columbian Europe 😅 Vesper is the evening star, Lucifer is the morning star, both refer to Venus. What a donkey!

[@sordorel]

Does anybody happen to know of scans of this book (or other copies of it) are available anywhere?

[@michaelharrison1093]

What is the name she used for the section at the back of the book? At 2:00

[@ChrisLindsley]

Is there any rhyme or reason to which capital letters get a red slash?

[@captianmorgan7627]

I'd like to know too. It seems to only be on some capital letters.

[@captianmorgan7627]

As best I can find it is 'rubrication'. The lines are both for emphasis (we can see that some names and individual words have the red lines through their first letter) and at the start of paragraphs or, more likely in this case, a start of a new thought, since they aren't really paragraphs.

[@MrPictor]

Vesper and Lucifer both referred to Venus. The former when seem in the morning sky, the latter when seen in the evening. I wonder where Mars is...

[@zapfanzapfan]

Rubrik (headline) comes from the latin Robur, meaning red.

[@ChandrasegaranNarasimhan]

For everyone, I am assuming metal age was there when books were printed. Why couldn't you have used metal wires to print diagrams instead of wood block. I do not know anything about what was used to print the first book. I might be a Monday morning quarterback here.

[@SAOS451316]

It was much cheaper to produce woodcuts at the time, and it was traditional. Making a diagram like these with a lot of simple lines could be done by soldering wires to a plate but many images were more illustrated and it would be very hard to do that way. When people started printing thousands of copies of a book they started using metal because it would last longer. These were made of lead or pewter and were cast from an original made of wood, clay, or wax.

[@ChandrasegaranNarasimhan]

Thank you, I might be totally wrong about this. Were metals actively used in the society when first book was printed?

[@IndigoBees]

@@ChandrasegaranNarasimhan Yes metal had been in widespread use for over 4,000 years at that point.

[@VampireSquirrel]

Funny as i bought a fascimile of this book yesterday

[@donepearce]

I wonder how many copies there are dotted around the world. I'm guessing that museums like the Smithsonian have one.

[@Ultracity6060]

Air and water have no connection? **hands on hips**

[@guanche011]

That's a Venn-diagram if I ever see one. So it should be called a Zainer-diagram. Just as correct as most contemporary ones too ;)

[@gsniroshan]

Wait, who is the printer? Guenther Steiner? Former Haas team principal? 😁

[@sgtommyc]

Exactly what I heard, but surely he can't be THAT old?? 😂😂

[@maciek_k.cichon]

3:15 My Latin is bad, that's why it is so hilarious 🤣

[@bigsarge2085]

👍👍

[@roberttelarket4934]

This book should be guarded! You never know who might want to deliberately damage or destroy it!

[@mytube001]

I can imagine that a printer from the late 1400s looking at modern books would think to himself "Why has no progress been made in half a millennium?"...

[@thomasdalton1508]

But then you take them to a bookshop and show them the sheer number of books available to ordinary people for the cost of less than an hour's wages and they would understand that there has been enormous progress. And I think that is what would interest a printer - the whole point of the printing press was to make printed materials more cheaply and, therefore, make them more accessible. It wasn't about improving quality - handwritten books were already of excellent quality.

[@forthrightgambitia1032]

@@thomasdalton1508 Not to mention if you want high quality printed books on porcelain paper with illustrations and so on you can buy them for a cost. The Landmark series of classical historians, for example.

[@miriamrosemary9110]

@@thomasdalton1508 And then you'd also show them an e-book and blow their minds :)

[@thomasdalton1508]

@@miriamrosemary9110 You would be accused of witchcraft at that point!

[@miriamrosemary9110]

@@thomasdalton1508 Good point! 😂

[@mindlaidwaste]

It is interesting how a simple mistake can linger through time. In this case, St. Isidore's mistake can be found in the map of the solar system. Can you spot it?

[@roberttelarket4934]

Beautiful! So much more so than trashy digital books!

[@fosnez]

No Gloves?

[@Pulsar77]

It's not recommended to use gloves for old books. Gloves make your fingers less sensitive, increasing the risk to damage the paper. With (properly washed) bare hands your touch can be much more delicate.

[@RuthvenMurgatroyd]

Clean, dry hands are better than gloves because the risk of accidentally tearing something from losing one's sense of touch or dropping the book due to having less grip is much worse than the damage hand oil will do to these books especially since hand oil isn't that big of a problem for the type of paper they were using back then in the first place. This paper is tough (hence why it's survived so long), it's parchment or vellum from calfskin or some other animal's hide and not some cheap pulp.

[@TriVyteOfficial]

First ;) cant wait to watch

[@schm00b0]

How come no gloves?

[@Carnage2018]

I em fass

[@skebess]

Silly clickbait title... Disliked.