This work has been conceived by the author as an enlarged version of the original volume Il libro manoscritto. Introduzione alla codicologia, already published in this series (n 124). At a time when the breaking down of political and ideological barriers has become an urgent necessity, investigating the science of the book before Gutenberg, i.e., Codicology, considered by the author in its entirety - the history of the ancient and medieval book and the relative manufacturing techniques up to its modern-day place of conservation, and the history of studies undertaken - goes beyond the confines of Greek and Latin civilizations of the western academic tradition. In an attempt at comparative methodology, allowing an improved reading of many artisanal book production phenomena, where possible, those cultures which have come into contact with our own are presented: from East to West, above all Byzantium, the age-old, multi-ethnic empire which gathered and salvaged both Roman and Greek civilizations, an inheritance which it enhanced with cultural and linguistic practices, as well as book and artistic techniques from a diversity of backgrounds.