Recto and verso
The
recto and
verso are respectively the "front" and "back" sides of a leaf of paper in a bound item such as a codex, book, broadsheet, or pamphlet. In languages written from left to right the recto is the right-hand page and the verso the left-hand page of an opening showing two pages. These are terms of art in the binding, printing, and publishing industries, and can be applied more broadly to any field where physical documents are exchanged. The term
recto-verso describes two-sided text. The terms are important in the field of codicology, where each physical sheet of a manuscript is numbered and the sides are referred to as
recto and
verso. Critical editions of manuscripts will often mark the position of text in the original manuscript, or manuscripts, in the style '42r.' or '673vº'. Often "recto" is implied if no "v" for "verso" is given, so that the pages are numbered: f1, f1v, f2, f2v....". The terms 'recto' and 'verso' find their origins in the use of papyrus. Papyrus, the earliest form of paper, was used to make books in Egypt, Greece and Rome. Papyrus sheet consisted of two superimposed layers.