Introduction: Copy-Specific Features of Incunabula

This chapter argues the necessity to re-evaluate some of the temporal, intermedial and geographical boundaries built around a long-established discipline, the study of incunabula. It sets out the past and future landscapes of incunabula studies, looking particularly at copy-specific features, and introduces subsequent chapters in the book, which will showcase how printed books were produced in the fifteenth century and subsequently used and transformed by readers and owners during their long journeys till they fell into their current owners’ hands.