Album (Ancient Rome)

An album (Latin: albus, lit. 'white'), in ancient Rome, was a board plastered with chalk or gypsum, or painted white (tabula dealbata), on which decrees, edicts and other ephemeral public notices were inscribed in ink using a calamus (reed pen). Album was an early predecessor of bulletin boards. In medieval and modern times the meaning of the word album had changed to refer to a book of blank pages in which verses, autographs, sketches, photographs and the like are collected. An ancient Greek equivalent was called leukomata (Ancient Greek: λεύκωμα pl. λευκώματα).

History

The Annales maximi of the Pontifex maximus, the annual edicts of the praetor, the lists of Roman and municipal senators (decuriones) and jurors (album indicum) were exhibited in this manner. The Acta Diurna, a sort of daily government gazette, containing an officially authorized narrative of noteworthy events in Rome was also published this way. Some researchers disagree with this description of the process that belongs to Servius the Grammarian (cf. Brennan 1990).

Legacy

The medieval and modern meaning of album, as a book of blank pages in which verses, autographs, sketches, photographs and the like are collected, derives from the Roman use. This in turn led to the modern meaning of an album as a collection of audio recordings issued as a single item on CD, record, audio tape or another medium.

Another deviation is also applied to the official list of matriculated students in a university, and to the roll in which a bishop inscribes the names of the diocese's clergy. In law, the word is the equivalent of mailles blanches, for rent paid in silver ("white") money.

References

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