In medieval and early modern times, scribes, painters, illustrators, translators and authors obviously had specific ideas of what was meant by fidelity to the original; the modern observer frequently regards their transfers as imprecise and wilful. It would, however, be too simple to speak of a 'typically medieval' manner of reproduction.
The papers in this volume show that the only sensible approach is to differentiate between the various forms and concepts of reproduction in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age. The interdisciplinarity of this volume results in a complex picture that brings out the different nature of medieval 'transfers' because it considers the particularity of each case. The volume sees itself as a contribution to a cultural history of artistic reproduction.