An Essay in the History of Gold-Tooled
Bindings by Herbert P. Horne
London 1894
employed, at Venice, about the time that Aldus Manutius established his press in that city,
superseded an earlier use of gold in the decoration of books. The art was certainly brought from
the East; and is said to have been employed with effect in Syria, as early as the thirteenth
century. Upon the fall of Constantinople, in 1453, a great number of manuscripts were carried
into Italy, from which, according to some authorities, this manner of finishing books was derived:
but it may be urged with equal probability, that the art was one of the many Oriental inventions,
acquired by the Venetians, in their traffic with the Levant. The bindings executed in Venice, and
certain other parts of Italy, during the second half of the fifteenth century, are commonly of
brown leather, tooled in blind, 011 either cover, with a border consisting in one, or more,
members of interlaced work between marginal lines, forming a panel, which is enriched by a knot
of work similar to that of the border, and contained within a circle. The interstices of the
interlaced work are usually filled with minute roundels: and the ornament within the panel is
occasionally repeated. The interlaced, or reticulated, work is usually of a very intricate nature,
and is formed by a narrow fillet, decorated with a series of oblique lines, in imitation of the twist
of a rope; from which it has been called the rope, or cable, pattern. The back is usually
ornamented with reticular lines, in blind tooling, between the bands, which are double; the
boards are of wood; and the edges of the book are left plain. It is a peculiarity of these bindings,
that in addition to the two clasps on the fore edge, the larger volumes have two others, upon
the head, and tail, edges: while angle-pieces of wrought brass to protect the corners of the
boards, and bosses of the same metal, are occasionally added. Many manuscripts in the British
Museum remain bound in this manner; of which a very beautiful codex of the De Clvitate Dei, by
St. Augustine [Add. MS. 15,246.], may be especially mentioned: the clasps are lost; but the book
retains its original back. Some examples show the addition of a figured tool, such as that of the
flies, on a manuscript of the Histories of Sallust, dated 1477 [Burney MS. 245.]. It is on bindings
of this nature, that the use of gold, in the decoration of Italian books, is first to be found; certain
of the little roundels, filling the interstices of the interlaced work, being gilt by the means, I am
inclined to think, of some water-process, which left the surface of the gilding dull; as on the
binding of a manuscript of the Contra Gentes, by Athanasius of Alexandria, reproduced by Mr.
Quaritch among his facsimiles [No. 85.]. Another, though a less fine, example may be found
among the Additional Manuscripts in the British Museum [Add. MS. 25,088.]; covering an epitome
in Latin, of Priscian's Commentaries.