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What does this glyph (red) mean? Also, what usage was there for it and the other glyph that looks like a colon (blue)?

enter image description here

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  • Rx= Rum. Take a look at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scribal_abbreviation for the handwriting conventions reenacted in this bit of printing. The wiggle sign over the "a" at the end of the line with your red mark is a missing "m" in "theologiam". The : is (I think) a punctuation mark.
    – kimchi lover
    Commented Apr 12, 2018 at 3:14
  • Look at the bottom of what Google books calls page 54 of books.google.com/…
    – kimchi lover
    Commented Apr 12, 2018 at 3:22

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You're looking at a scribal abbreviation for "-rum". That is, the word is actually philosophorum, but with the last three letters replaced with ꝶ. Here is a screenshot of the enlarged character from the graphemica page:

enter image description here

The colon is probably a punctus elevatus which is sometimes written without its tail, i.e. like a colon. It's basically like our modern comma.

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  • just found out that not many fonts have this glyph, even premium ones like Garamond Premier Pro are missing it. Such a shame.
    – Suppboi
    Commented Apr 25, 2018 at 1:44

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