Letter P c. 15th century

Curator: Here, we have an intriguing piece simply titled "Letter P," held in the collections of the Harvard Art Museums. Editor: Oh, my goodness, look at this! It feels like stepping back in time. It's dense, it's mysterious, it's like a secret waiting to be unlocked from another era. Curator: Indeed! It's an anonymous piece, so we don't know the artist. What we do know is that the letter "P" itself is just the beginning of what follows... a block of blackletter text in Latin, I think? Editor: It's imposing, isn't it? All those tightly packed lines, the way the ink almost shimmers... It has a gravitas. Curator: Absolutely, and the letter itself, ornately flourished, almost battles the block text for prominence, it is as if two eras are butting heads. Editor: It feels like a world of scholarship and debate trapped on a single page. I feel as if a thousand different conversations and interpretations could spring from that page. Curator: I agree. It's a reminder of the intellectual life of the past, a tangible artifact of a world of learning, debate, and the sheer physicality of producing and consuming knowledge. Editor: It makes you think about how ideas traveled. How much care was taken in every copied word, how much effort went into ensuring ideas survived. I'll be looking at the printed word differently after seeing this.