An Essay in the History of Gold-Tooled
Bindings by Herbert P. Horne
London 1894
already made by them on the leather, in working the pattern through the paper: but care must
be taken, that each tool is exactly placed in its former impression, otherwise the contours of tite
tools will become blurred, or doubled. The whole of the impressions having been tooled in this
manner, the superfluous gold is removed with the gold-rag; and any defective parts of the work
must be re-penciled with glaire, and re-tooled, until the gilding of the whole is equally solid.
Some Parisian workmen repeat this operation several times, in order to obtain that solidity, for
which their gilding is conspicuous: but the effect is more often correct and mechanical, than
pleasing. Not, only, is an extraordinary dexterity and steadiness of hand necessary to execute
this kind of gold tooling; but also, great experience as to the precise temperature and skill in
working all the tools at an equal temperature; for different leathers require different degrees of
heat, and that which would burn one leather would not make a sharp impression upon another.
In short, the tool must be hot enough to make the gold adhere, but sufficiently temperate to
produce a bright impression. The back is tooled much in the same way as the boards; but the
inside of a book is generally finished before the outside.
I have, thus, briefly described the method, which is usually employed by the modem
bookbinder in gilding a book bound in morocco; but there are many variations upon it, which
may be followed. The early Venetian binders often finished a book with silver-leaf which they
apparently worked in the same way as the gold-leaf. Silk, velvet, and paper, are finished with
dried and pulverized glaire, to which have been added certain gums. If a book is to be finished
in blind, that is, without gilding, the leather has merely to be damped and the tools worked at
such a temperature as shall produce a sharp impression, or, if necessary, produce a darkened
impression, by slightly charring the leather. Stamps were formerly worked hot, in an
arming-press, so called because coats of arms were commonly finished on the sides of books in
that way: but during recent years, many more elaborate kinds of presses have been invented,
by which stamps and blocks can be accurately worked with great expedition.
Many, also, are the methods by which inlaid, or mosaic work, as it is sometimes called, may be
executed: perhaps the best way is to place the leather, which is to be inlaid, upon the ground,
and cut through both their thicknesses at once with a sharp knife. The lower leather is then
removed, and replaced by the upper one: and the joint covered by a line, or other ornament, in
gold. Another method is to apply the various colored leathers, by paring them until they are
exceedingly thin, and pasting them upon the ground.
Such are the chief methods by which modern European books have been gilded, or otherwise
ornamented: but any account of the various canons of taste, which have determined the figures
of the tools, and the principles of their combination and repetition, would be, in effect, but a
history of the work of those binders, who have practiced the craft since the end of the fifteenth
century. This, I shall now attempt to indicate by a short history of those periods of Italian,
French, and English binding, when the art was at its finest: and afterwards I shall endeavor to
deduce, from the productions of those times, certain principles of taste and composition, which
would seem constant in this art.