Quarto (abbreviated Qto , 4to or 4º ) is the format of a book or pamphlet produced from full sheets printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded twice to produce four leaves. The leaves are then trimmed along the folds to produce eight book pages. Each printed page presents as one-fourth size of the full sheet.
31-537: The earliest known European printed book is a quarto, the Sibyllenbuch , believed to have been printed by Johannes Gutenberg in 1452–53, before the Gutenberg Bible , surviving only as a fragment. Quarto is also used as a general description of size of books that are about 12 inches (30 cm) tall, and as such does not necessarily indicate the actual printing format of the books, which may even be unknown as
62-418: A book printed as a quarto (four leaves per full sheet) but bound in gatherings of 8 leaves each a "quarto in 8s." The actual size of a quarto book depends on the size of the full sheet of paper on which it was printed. A demy quarto (abbreviated demy 4to) is a chiefly British term referring to a book size of about 11.25 by 8.75 inches (286 by 222 mm), a medium quarto 9 by 11.5 inches (230 by 290 mm),
93-410: A hunt. She desires him to get off his horse, and speak to her. Adonis doesn't want to talk to any woman, not even a goddess. So she forces him, and then lies down beside him, gazes at him, and talks of love. She craves a kiss; he wants to leave and go hunting. He manages to get away, and he goes to get his horse. At that moment, his horse becomes enamoured of another horse, who at first resists, but soon
124-689: A pamphlet called the Turkish Kalendar (Calendar) for 1455, which was likely to have been printed in late 1454. Each month in the Kalendar contains a warning to an important Christian leader about invasion by the Turks. The typeface has been called the DK type after its use by Donatus in the Ars minor , and in the Kalendar . Scholars have identified several different states of this typeface. A later version
155-400: A quarto in 1593 (Q1), with a second quarto edition (Q2) in 1594. In Spanish culture, a similar concept of separate editions of plays is known as comedia suelta . Sibyllenbuch fragment The Sibyllenbuch fragment is a partial book leaf which may be the earliest surviving remnant of any European book that was printed using movable type . The Sibyllenbuch , or Book of
186-503: A royal quarto 10 by 12.5 inches (250 by 320 mm), and a small quarto equalled a square octavo, all untrimmed. The earliest surviving books printed by movable type by Gutenberg are quartos, which were printed before the Gutenberg Bible. The earliest known one is a fragment of a medieval poem called the Sibyllenbuch , believed to have been printed by Gutenberg in 1452–53. Quartos were the most common format of books printed in
217-432: Is going to hunt the wild boar. Venus has a vision, and warns him that if he does so, he will be killed by a boar. She then flings herself on him, tackling him to the ground. He pries himself loose, and lectures her on the topic of lust versus love. He then leaves; she cries. The next morning Venus roams the woods searching for Adonis. She hears dogs and hunters in the distance. Thinking of her vision that he will be killed by
248-480: Is inconsistent with Venus's request that he hunt only harmless animals like hares. Other stories in Ovid's work are, to a lesser degree, considered sources: the tales of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus , Narcissus , and Pygmalion . It was published about five years before Christopher Marlowe 's posthumously published Hero and Leander , which is also a narrative love poem based on a story from Ovid. Venus and Adonis
279-724: Is now commonly known as the Venus and Adonis stanza, after this poem. This form was also used by Edmund Spenser and Thomas Lodge . The poem consists of 199 stanzas or 1,194 lines. It was published originally as a quarto pamphlet and published with great care. It was probably printed using Shakespeare's fair copy . The printer was Richard Field , who, like Shakespeare, was from Stratford. Venus and Adonis appeared in print before any of Shakespeare's plays were published, but not before some of his plays had been acted on stage. It has certain qualities in common with A Midsummer Night's Dream , Romeo and Juliet , and Love's Labour's Lost . It
310-557: Is part of a fourteenth-century poem of 1040 lines known as the "Sibyllenbuch" (Book of the Sibyls ) containing "prophecies concerning the fate of the Holy Roman Empire". The British Library identifies the fragment as coming from a quarto volume, which is a book composed of sheets of paper on which four pages were printed on each side, which were then folded twice to form groups of four leaves or eight pages. From analysis of
341-427: Is speculated that they may have been produced not from manuscript texts, but from actors who had memorized their lines. Other playwrights in this period also published their plays in quarto editions. Christopher Marlowe 's Doctor Faustus , for example, was published as a quarto in 1604 (Q1), with a second quarto edition in 1609. The same is true of poems, Shakespeare's poem Venus and Adonis being first printed as
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#1732765109290372-404: Is the case for many modern books. These terms are discussed in greater detail in book sizes . A quarto (from Latin quārtō , ablative form of quārtus , fourth) is a book or pamphlet made up of one or more full sheets of paper on which eight pages of text were printed, which were then folded two times to produce four leaves. Each leaf of a quarto book thus represents one fourth the size of
403-465: The Elizabethan era and through the mid-seventeenth century, plays and poems were commonly printed as separate works in quarto format. Eighteen of Shakespeare's 36 plays included in first folio collected edition of 1623 , were previously separately printed as quartos, with a single exception that was printed in octavo. For example, Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1 , the most popular play of the era,
434-537: The University of California at Davis in 1987, confirmed that the ink on the Sibyllenbuch has high levels of lead and copper, closely similar to that used for other works printed by Gutenberg. Venus and Adonis (Shakespeare poem) Venus and Adonis is a narrative poem by William Shakespeare published in 1593. It is probably Shakespeare's first publication. The poem tells the story of Venus ,
465-405: The incunabula period (books printed before 1501). The British Library Incunabula Short Title Catalogue currently lists about 28,100 different editions of surviving books, pamphlets and broadsides (some fragmentary only) printed before 1501, of which about 14,360 are quartos, representing just over half of all works in the catalogue. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, technology permitted
496-533: The Sibyls , was a medieval poem which held prophecies concerning the fate of the Holy Roman Empire . The British Library ’s on-line Incunabula Short Title Catalogue dates the Sibyllenbuch fragment to "about 1452–53", making it older than any other example of European movable-type printing, including the c. 1454 Gutenberg Bible . However, various movable-type systems were developed as early as
527-432: The boar, she is afraid, and hurries to catch up with the hunt. She comes across hunting dogs that are injured. Then she finds Adonis, killed by a wild boar. Venus is devastated. Because this loss occurred to the goddess of love, she decrees that love will henceforth be mixed with suspicion, fear, and sadness and that love will be "fickle, false and full of fraud". Adonis's body has grown cold and pale. His blood gives colour to
558-796: The eleventh century in the history of typography in East Asia . The Sibyllenbuch fragment consists of a partial paper leaf printed in German using Gothic letter . It is owned by the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz , Germany. The fragment was discovered in 1892 in an old bookbinding in Mainz. The text on the fragment relates to the Last Judgment and therefore sometimes is also called “Das Weltgericht” (German for "Last Judgment"). The text
589-420: The end, she insists that the boar's killing of Adonis happened accidentally as the animal, impressed by the young hunter's beauty, gored him while trying to kiss him. Venus's behavior seems to reflect Shakespeare's own feelings of empathy about animals: his poem devotes many stanzas to descriptions of a stallion's feelings as he pursues a sexually attractive mare and to a hare's feelings as hounds run it down, which
620-570: The fragment dated to the 1440s, it is now believed to have been printed in the early 1450s. George D. Painter concluded that “primitive imperfections” in the typeface of the Sibyllenbuch fragment indicated that it was the earliest of the fragments printed in the DK type. This is consistent with the British Library's dating to "about 1452–53". A cyclotron analysis, conducted by the Crocker Nuclear Laboratory at
651-430: The goddess of Love; of her unrequited love; and of her attempted seduction of Adonis , an extremely handsome young man, who would rather go hunting. The poem is pastoral , and at times erotic, comic and tragic. It contains discourses on the nature of love, and observations of nature. It is written in stanzas of six lines of iambic pentameter rhyming ABABCC; although this verse form was known before Shakespeare's use, it
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#1732765109290682-463: The location of the watermark on the fragment and the known length of the entire poem, it has been estimated that the complete work contained 37 leaves (74 pages) with 28 lines per page. The typeface used in the Sibyllenbuch is the same as that used in other early fragments attributed to Johannes Gutenberg . In particular these include an Ars minor by Donatus , which was a Latin grammar used for centuries in schools, and also several leaves of
713-404: The manufacture of large sheets or rolls of paper on which books were printed, many text pages at a time. As a result, it may be impossible to determine the actual format (i.e., number of leaves formed from each sheet fed into a press). The term "quarto" as applied to such books may refer simply to the size, i.e., books that are approximately 10 inches (250 mm) tall by 8 inches (200 mm) wide. During
744-509: The original sheet. Each group of four leaves (called a "gathering" or "quire") could be sewn through the central fold to attach it to the other gatherings to form a book. Sometimes, additional leaves would be inserted within another group to form, for example, gatherings of eight leaves, which similarly would be sewn through the central fold. Generally, quartos have more squarish proportions than folios or octavos . There are variations in how quartos were produced. For example, bibliographers call
775-471: The plants all around him. A flower grows from the soil beneath him. It is white and purple, like blood on Adonis's flesh. Venus, bereft, leaves to confine herself to Paphos , on Cyprus , where she was worshipped. "Hard-favour'd tyrant, ugly, meagre, lean, Hateful divorce of love," thus chides she Death, Grim-grinning ghost, earth's worm, what dost thou mean To stifle beauty and to steal his breath, Who when he liv'd, his breath and beauty set Gloss on
806-521: The tale occurs in book ten of his Metamorphoses . It differs greatly from Shakespeare's version. Ovid's Venus goes hunting with Adonis to please him, but otherwise is uninterested in the out-of-doors. She wears "tucked up" robes, worries about her complexion, and particularly hates dangerous wild animals. Shakespeare's Venus is a bit like a wild animal herself: she apparently goes naked, and is not interested in hunting, but only in making love to Adonis, offering her body to him in graphically explicit terms. In
837-454: The two animals gallop off together, which keeps Adonis from going hunting. Venus approaches him, and continues to speak to him of love. He listens for a bit, then turns away scornfully. This pains her, and she faints. Afraid he might have killed her, Adonis kneels beside her, strokes and kisses her. Venus recovers and requests one last kiss. He reluctantly gives in. Venus wants to see him again; Adonis tells her that he cannot tomorrow, because he
868-448: Was extremely popular as soon as it was published, and it was reprinted fifteen times before 1640. It is unusual that so few of the original quartos have survived. Adonis is a young man renowned for his incredible beauty. However, he is not interested at all in love; he only wants to go hunting. Venus is the goddess of love. When she sees Adonis, she falls in love with him, and comes down to earth, where she encounters him setting out on
899-498: Was first published as a quarto in 1598, with a second quarto edition in 1599, followed by a number of subsequent quarto editions. Bibliographers have extensively studied these different editions, which they refer to by abbreviations such as Q1, Q2, etc. The texts of some of the Shakespeare quartos are highly inaccurate and are full of errors and omissions. Bibliographer Alfred W. Pollard named those editions bad quartos , and it
930-422: Was used around 1459 to 1460 to print the so-called 36-line Bible . For this reason, the various states of this type have collectively been called the “36-line Bible type.” Due to the “less finished state of the [ DK ] font” that was used in the Sibyllenbuch fragment, scholars have concluded it was “plausibly earlier than 1454", the approximate date of Gutenberg's Bible. Although at one time some believed that
961-582: Was written when the London theatres were closed for a time due to the plague. The poem begins with a brief dedication to Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton , in which the poet describes the poem as "the first heir of my invention". The poem is inspired by and based on stories found in the Metamorphoses , a narrative poem by the Latin poet, Ovid (43 BC – AD 17/18). Ovid's much briefer version of