Friar Johannes Balbus of Genoa tried in his 1286 Catholicon. Balbus thought he was inventing alphabetical order for the first time, and his instructions were painstaking: “For example I intend to discuss amo and bibo. I will discuss amo before bibo because a is the first letter of amo and b is the first letter of bibo and a is before b in the alphabet. Similarly …” He rehearsed a long list of examples and concluded: “I beg of you, therefore, good reader, do not scorn this great labor of mine and this order as something worthless.” In the ancient world, alphabetical lists scarcely appeared
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