Punctuation

Modern conventions for the punctuation of Latin were largely established by the Italian humanist scholar turned printer, Aldus Manutius (?1449-1515).

Latin conventionally capitalizes proper nouns and adjectives derived from proper nouns;

German capitalizes the first word in a sentence and all nouns, but not adjectives derived from proper nouns;

English capitalizes the first word, proper nouns and adjectives derived from proper nouns;

Spanish capitalizes the first word and proper nouns, but not adjectives derived from proper nouns.

Hence:

Fewer than 200 manuscripts of pagan Latin texts are extant from before AD 800, the year in which Charlemagne, the great (but almost illiterate) patron of literature and scholarship, was crowned Holy Roman Emperor. From the monastic establishments which he fostered, more than 6,000 texts survive, written mostly in the Carolingian script, named in his honor. The actual term Holy Roman Empire (sacrum Romanum imperium) dates only from 1254. (Voltaire observed that it was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.)

Almost no pagan Latin texts survive that were copied in the very dark centuries from 550 till 750. Worse still, that was the great age of the palimpsest, when unwanted pagan texts were washed off parchment, to be replaced with Christian devotional works. The monasteries at Luxeuil and Bobbio, founded by Irish monks, were particularly fervent centers for such recycling.