by Chad Miller, July 2019
October 2019, I got a tattoo on my inner left forearm. It's my first! And I'm not young. Here's why and what I got.
In the west, most occupations or habits had or have a patron saint or patron angel.
Not scribes or printers. They have a patron demon. His name is Titivillus. /Tee-tih'-vill-us/
Scribes sat hunched over candle-lit desks for hours, copying documents using blotchy ink and fraying quills. They'd read a few words from one manuscript and try to ink out a perfect copy of those words in a new one, and then go back to read the next few words. It was grueling work. Every reproduction of a document or book was made this way, a long chain of handwritten copies of copies stretched across time.
It was a big deal to make a mistake. Not just the next reader's soul was at stake. Your document might be the source for future copies, and your error might be transmitted into the future. Your mistake could corrupt whole nations.
So, these worn out pitiful employees were happy to embrace the mischievous little demon Titivillus (/Tee-tih'-vill-us/), and make him their patron demon.
When printing presses were invented, it didn't fix the problem. A mistake would instead be multiplied to thousands of copies at once, instead of slowly. Printers also embraced Titivillus.
I first learned of Titivillus in my 20s when I was in the Society for Creative Anachronism. I was there for the fencing and archery, but the heraldry and calligraphy called to me too as impractical and nerdy. A Person of Quality was describing her time in "mundane" life during a guided tour of a historical US city, where the guide was pointing out an old printers' shop and its "devil" encrusted sign. She interupted him to correct him, and the guide spent the rest of the tour scribling down what she described to the rest of the tour group about Titivillus.
My first job, at age 15 (!), was in a print shop in my home town, so I think I had glimpsed Titivillus then.
I write software. Titivillus hovers under my elbow or behind a book, eager to introduce bugs.
I sketched the skeleton of an idea, in anticipation of having a tattoo artist run with it.
by Chad Miller, July 2019
I consulted one artist, and we never reached an artistic consensus, so I decided to fill in more details where they mattered to me, so my next artist would have less ambiguity.
by Chad Miller, September 2019
I went to a smaller parlour in my neighborhood, Two Birds, and was delighted to work with Ruby Santiago there. She coaxed me into a larger and more detailed and more impish shape for him.
by Ruby Santiago, October 2019