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incipit
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Quick Facts
Latin:
“here begins”
Related Topics:
book
explicit
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incipit

printing
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History

incipit, the opening word or words of a medieval Western manuscript or early printed book. In the absence of a title page, the text may be recognized, referred to, and recorded by its incipit. As in the title pages or main divisions of later printed books, incipits provide an occasion for display letters and a fanfare of calligraphic ornament.

The end of the text in a medieval manuscript was announced by the word explicit, probably a reshaping (after incipit) of an earlier Latin phrase such as explicitum est volumen (“the book has been completely unrolled”), itself a reminder of the scroll form of the book used in the West before the codex format was adopted about ad 300.