English to Italian Art/Literary History penne d'oca e calami

Mi è chiaro il significato, ma nn mi viene una traduzione elegante....


Up to the end of the eleventh century ruling in medieval manuscripts
was usually done with a blunt point, producing an impressed line on
one side of the page and a raised line on the other. This meant that
because of the awkward bumps and dips involved, scribes invariably
wrote a little above the ruled line or in between them, using the lines
simply as rough guides rather than absolute measurement of a letter’s
height.