Pilcrow
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In typography, the pilcrow is a grapheme used to identify a paragraph. In editorial production the pilcrow typographic character is also known as the paragraph mark, the paragraph sign, the paragraph
Three short paragraphs on making gunpowder in the manuscript GNM 3227a (Germany, c. 1400); the first paragraph is marked with an early form of the pilcrow sign, the two following paragraphs are introduced with litterae notabiliores (enlarged letters).
Pilcrow signs in an excerpt from a page of Villanova, Rudimenta Grammaticæ, printed by Spindeler in 1500 in Valencia.
Opening page of Genesis from the Doves Bible (Doves Press, 1902): pilcrow used as a verse marker
Rubrication
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Rubrication is the addition of text in red ink to a manuscript for emphasis. Practitioners of rubrication, so-called rubricators or rubrishers, were specialized scribes who received text from the orig
Pilcrow
…a long block of text without paragraph indentions, as in the book An Essay on Typography (1931), by Eric Gill. In the Middle Ages, the practice of rubrication (type in red-ink) used a red pilcrow to indicate the beginning of a different train of thought within the author's narrative without paragraphs. The…
Rubrication and illumination in the Malmesbury Bible from 1407
Detail from a rare Blackletter Bible (1497) printed and rubricated in Strasbourg by Johann Grüninger
Extract of the second letter of St Paul to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 6:5–7), and of the second letter of St Peter (2 Peter 2:4–5.7–9), with red ink for certain characters.
Book of the Dead, showing red ink for some hieroglyphs.