The development of the graphosphere in public spaces (ca. 1450–1850)

The graphosphere is the space of the visible word. This study offers a brief exploration of the formation of one segment of the graphosphere: the development and history of writing in public open spaces, as part of the urban landscape. One of the major differences between the medieval city and the ancient city was the absence, in the medieval city, of a culture of public inscriptional writing. This article traces the main phases in the emergence and establishment of an urban graphosphere in Russia from the late 15th century to the mid 19th century.

Inscriptions on and around churches (e.g. foundation and donor inscriptions, inscribed gravestones, inscribed bells) began to appear in Muscovy and the Rus principalities from the late 15th century. State initiatives with graphospheric implications were disparate and episodic until the final quarter of the 17th century. Around the turn of the 18th century the State-sponsored display of words in a range of contexts (e.g. the posting of decrees, the erection of inscribed triumphal and festive structures, the adornment of parks with inscribed statues) became a more consistent and deliberate aspect of policy. However, such 'top-down' initiatives also tended to be short-lived. They rarely developed into traditions. The key catalyst for the formation of the urban graphosphere of modernity was not any State institution or programme, but private trade and commerce, especially in connection with the spread of shops with on-street frontages rather than traditional trading rows or stalls. The urban graphosphere took shape thanks to the proliferation of shop signs, approximately during the first third of the 19th century.