Transcriber's Note:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfullyas possible, including any inconsistencies in the original.
Green Levant—inlays of red and black leather. Decorative tooling in gold.
Bib-li-op-e-gis-tic
(Pertaining to the art of binding books.—Dibdin)
to which is appended
a glossary of some
terms used in
the craft
With Illustrations of
Bindings Designed and Executed by
The Trow Press, New York
The craft of the bookbinder is older thanthat of the printer. Quoting from Mr.Brander Matthews:
“Perhaps the first bookbinder was the humbleworkman who collected the baked clay tiles onwhich the Assyrians wrote their laws; and he wasa bookbinder also who prepared a protecting cylinderto guard the scrolls of papyrus on whichVergil, and Horace, and Martial had written theirverses.”
Modern art in bookbinding began in Italy inthe fifteenth century. The invention of printinghad so multiplied books that the work got out ofthe hands of the monks, and workmen from othertrades were pressed into service, bringing withthem their skill in working leather, as well as theirtools, and designs which they had previously usedto decorate their work.
At this time the libraries were shelves, soinclined, as to allow of the books lying on theirsides, inviting their decoration. At first the embellishmentwas suggested or influenced by thework in the volume, and very often there would be found on the cover, repetition of the typographicornaments used by the printer.
Vine colored Levant—inlays of red and green leather. Interlacing bands and decoration tooled in gold.
But with the associations and influence of theother decorative arts, there came the use of interlacingbands, scrolls, and geometric designs, followedby copies of patterns and parts of designs fromlaces, embroideries, pottery and ironwork of thetimes. And with the broadening in the ideas ofdecoration, came the use of inlays of leather ofharmonizing colors, and even of precious stones.
While the art was developing in Italy, largelyunder French patronage, it was also beginning toflourish in France, where later it reached its supremacy.So much so that up to the nineteenthcentury it was “France first and the rest nowhere.”
In no work more than in binding have theFrench shown their fine artistic taste, and in thefamous collections of the world the choicest specimensare by French binders of the sixteenth tothe eighteenth centuries.
France to-day has many binders of great skilland good taste, but no longer holds the supremacyof the earlier days. England has developed somecraft