"The fear of oblivion obsessed medieval and early modern Europe. Stone, wood, cloth, parchment, and paper all provided media onto which writing was inscribed as a way to ward off loss. And the task was not easy in a world in which writing could be destroyed, manuscripts lost, or books menaced with destruction . Paradoxically, the successful spread of printing posed another danger, that an uncontrollable proliferation of textual materials, of matter...