An Essay in the History of Gold-Tooled
Bindings by Herbert P. Horne
London 1894
discovery, of printing, towards the close of the fifteenth century. Within the space of a few
years, scarcely the quarter of a century, both of these arts had reached, in Italy, a degree of
excellence in fineness and beauty of design, to which they have not a second time attained: but
this sudden accomplishment does not appear extraordinary in the age, which realized the
perfection of Art, in the masterpieces of Raphael, Leonardo, and Michelangelo. In that
culmination of taste and manners, it was not possible, that the printing and binding of books,
upon which Literature in no small measure depends, should remain among the mechanical
trades: and yet, once informed by those qualities of design, from which the fineness of an art
proceeds, the period of this accomplishment was as brief, as its rise had been sudden. That
criticism, which Michelangelo passed upon a work by II Greco; remarking, that the hour for the
death of Art had arrived, since it was not possible for a better work, in its kind, to be seen; was
true of the whole series and condition of the decorative arts at that time. In other directions,
they might hereafter reach an equal excellence; but it was not possible to carry the manner, in
which they were then practiced, to greater perfection: and the justness of this criticism is
evident in the effect, which the influence of Michelangelo himself produced upon the masters,
who succeeded him, and who worked according to the tradition of his manner.
From the moment, in which he exercised his fascination over the world, the history of the
decorative arts is that of their gradual decadence; a decadence, which has, in the art of
bookbinding, continued to the present time, despite the felicity of the courtly styles prevalent in
France, for more than two centuries. And in the binder's art, as in the art of printing, this gradual
decadence was accompanied by a gradual approach towards a greater perfection of
workmanship, the one diminishing as the other increased; until a technical excellence has been
reached by certain French binders, during the present century, beyond which it would seem
impossible to proceed. Such are the chief characteristics of the history, which I am about to
touch upon: nor are they common only to the arts of printing and bookbinding.