ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the aura of the letter. It discusses several different incarnations of one sixteenth-century alphabet poem in manuscript and print, comparing the presentation of the initials at the beginning of each stanza to clarify the relationship between aura and bibliographic code. To begin with, the Spiritual ABC is the opening poem of the manuscript. Four printed versions of Crul's Spiritual ABC have survived. Some producers believed the decoration of the poem to be meaningful and indispensable. The "aura" of a text is also affected by the co-text and para-text, not only by the layout and decoration. The text may have a similar co-text, but have a different aura because of a different layout and a different para-text. The reconsideration of the link between aura, manuscript, and ornament revealed a sixteenth-century debate on form and content.
