Alternative Layout System

Related to "Last is first", old Spanish books sometimes put at the end of the page the first syllable of the next page. (It was quite disconcerting when I first saw it.)

That's called a "catchword", and it's common in many older texts (not just in Spanish). It serves two purposes - it makes it easier for a person reading the book aloud to read smoothly while turning a page, and it makes it easier for bookbinders to spot pages which are missing or out of order. (Page numbers were, believe it or not, a later development.)

It was common throughout Europe in the early modern era.

I've got a book of recipes from Williamsburg, Virginia, a kind of outdoor museum LARPing as 1775. The recipes are from various sources, but they typeset it as a period document, including those catchwords. I find it charming.