Palaeography in Italian

The seventh entry is la correzione del copista stesso, and the small word at the end of it does a job that English has to divide between two different ones. Stesso means « same » and it also means « himself », and nothing tells the two apart but where it stands. Put it before the noun and it is the first: lo stesso copistais the same copyist as on the page beforela stessa pennais the pen already mentionednello stesso annois that year and no other Put it after the noun, as this entry does, and it turns emphatic: il copista stesso is the copyist in person, which is the whole point of the entry, since what it records is that nobody else came along later to mend the line. Pronouns behave the same way — io stesso, lui stesso, la regola stessa. English cannot lean on position here and has to change word instead, so a reader who renders il copista stesso as « the same copyist » throws away the one distinction the entry was made to keep.