Sender: Rare book and manuscripts <EXLIBRIS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU>
I am grateful for the responses that I received
on and off the list on the phrase "media camara",
and Farley Katz's pointer to Google books may
have given me a lead to the answer.
I should have been more precise framing my query.
I think both binding and format can be crossed
off as possibilities for a couple of reasons.
First, I would expect to see "media camara" used
to describe other texts, not just breviaries, if
it were a reference to binding or format. I've
seen it nowhere else except in reference to
breviaries. Second, some of the entries include
binding or format or both in the description, and
a redundancy in one or the other doesn't seem to
make logical or grammatical sense. Typeface
remains a possibility, as the RAE offers, as one
definition of "breviario" "Fundición de nueve
puntos, como la que solía usarse en las antiguas
impresiones del breviario romano." On the other
hand, the inventory I'm looking at includes
presses and typefaces and neither "breviario",
"camara" nor "media camara" appear.
Following Farley Katz's advice, Google Books
offered a couple of snippets from Max Rooses'
"Correspondance de Christophe Plantin": Los
Breviarios de dos tiempos podrían ser de la misma
letra que los de media cámara que son para viejos
y sean también de glossa y texto etc" on page 8
(of which volume, I don't know). It looks as
though there are other uses on the same page,
though it frustratingly won't let me see them,
and a reference in French on p 106 (again, what
volume?) with the spelling "media camera".
It appears as though none of the libraries I have
access to here in Mexico have a copy, so if
anyone has Rooses' "Correspondance" close at
hand, I would be most grateful for a quick look.