Book frontispiece of folk etymology, from 'frontispice' to 'frontispiece' ('front' + 'piece'). Book frontispiece A frontispiece in books is a decorative or informative illustration facing a book's title page—on the left-hand, or verso, page opposite the right-hand, or recto, page. While some books depict thematic elements, other books feature the author's portrait as the frontispiece. In medieval illuminated manuscripts, a presentation miniature showing the book or text being presented (by whom and to whom varies) was often used as a frontispiece. The word comes from the French "frontispice", or the late Latin "frontispicium", from the Latin "frons" ('forehead') and "specere" ('to look
Canons of page construction Canons of page construction The canons of page construction are historical reconstructions, based on careful measurement of extant books and what is known of the mathematics and engineering methods of the time, of manuscript-framework methods that may have been used in Medieval- or Renaissance-era book design to divide a page into pleasing proportions. Since their popularization in the 20th century, these canons have influenced modern-day book design in the ways that page proportions, margins and type areas (print spaces) of books are constructed. The notion of canons, or laws of form, of book page construction was popularized by Jan Tschichold