> It is also worth saying that many historic uses of marginalia (for example, commentary on the Tanakh) are also associated with particular parts of the text and could not be laid out as you are describing without losing intended meaning.

I don't understand this. What part of the intended meaning would be lost? I have a printing plate of part of a Chinese Buddhist text with traditional commentary attached, and it works almost identically to this modern HTML from Harvard Law Review ( https://harvardlawreview.org/2021/06/commonwealth-v-mccarthy... ) - there's an area on the page for the text, another area for the commentary, and symbols identify which comments apply to which parts of the text.

But the Harvard Law Review piece is exactly what I just described, except that the notes do not appear near the text to which they apply.