Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Scheda

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

SCHED'A or SCIDA (σχίδη). A strip cut from the inner bark of the papyrus, and used for the purpose of making sheets of paper to write books upon; which was effected in the following manner. The inner skin was first peeled off in thin coats (philyrae) of the largest size which could be obtained without flaws or fractures. These were cut into strips (schedae), and glued together by their largest sides, to form the writing surface; the back part being strengthened by other strips stuck on in a transverse direction, to prevent the paper from splitting up in the direction of the fibres. One row of strips thus prepared and joined together was called a length or a breadth (plagula); a certain number of which were then glued together into one large sheet to make a book or roll (liber, volumen). Plin. H. N. xiii. 23. Hence the word is frequently used in the sense of a leaf, a single piece of paper, or the fractional part of a sheet, like our page. Cic. Att. i. 20. Quint. i. 8. 19. Mart. iv. 91.