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The dense block of sigla at the foot of a scholarly edition recording variant readings.
Also known as: Textual apparatus, Letters at the bottom of a page in an old text
The compressed footnote band under the text of a critical edition. It records what the manuscripts actually say where they disagree, in a shorthand of letters and abbreviations that lets a reader reconstruct the editor's choices and dispute them.
A block of notes at the foot of a critically edited text recording, for each point of disagreement, what the various manuscripts read and which witnesses support each reading.
Contexts: History
Manuscripts are identified by single letters or short abbreviations called sigla, defined in a list at the front of the edition. The same letter means different manuscripts in different editions.
Sigla are edition-specific. The letter A is not a fixed manuscript.
Its purpose is falsifiability: the apparatus lets a reader see the evidence the editor worked from and reach a different conclusion, which a bare printed text does not.
A band of small dense type below a horizontal rule at the foot of a page, composed of numbers, single italic letters and heavily abbreviated Latin.