An Essay in the History of Gold-Tooled
Bindings by Herbert P. Horne
London 1894
of circles; and both the panel within, and margin without, this border are studded with leaves
and knots of Arabic work; the whole being in blind tooling. The Museum, also, possesses a copy
on vellum, of the Commentaries of Caesar published by the same printer at Florence, in 15 14
[C. 19, £-12.]; the binding of which is figured in Plate II. It is of green morocco: and both boards
are elaborately tooled in gold; the marginal lines in which the angle-pieces are set, alone being
in blind. The gold-tooled work on this binding is principally composed of the running pattern,
founded upon a series of circles, which occurs upon the binding of the Dante. The edges of the
book are gilt, and gauffered with a band of lozenge shaped ornament relieving a panel, formed
by a Reticulated border. It has been suggested with great probability, that Aldus, in common
with other early printers, had a binder's shop in connection with his press: and the recurrence of
the same tool upon the bindings of Philippo di Giunta would seem to suggest that the Florentine
printer also employed his own staff of binders. But conclusions of this kind are not to be drawn
with any certainty. Among the Additional Manuscripts, is a Commission of Agostino Barbarigo,
Doge of Venice, to Lorenzo Giustiniani, dated 1st April 1498, and bound in brown morocco,
elaborately tooled in gold [Add. MS. 25,034.]. On this binding, which is undoubtedly of Venetian
workmanship, and of the same date as the manuscript, both the knot of Arabic work, which
occurs on the binding of the Aldine Statz'us, and the running border on that of the Florentine
Dante and Caesar, are used in combination with other tools. How then is the recurrence of
these patterns to be explained? It might, perhaps, be surmised, that, when Aldus first set up his
press in Venice, he employed the gilders whom he found there, and allowed them to practice
their art in their own manner, using the tools and patterns then in fashion, with the addition of
certain others for his peculiar use. But even this conjecture is, perhaps, not to be corroborated
by fact: since the figured tool of the dolphins, used upon the Aldine bindings of the Statius and
the Cicero, is, also, to be found upon a Venetian binding of a manuscript poem, by Publius
Faustus, in honour of Louis XII., preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale, and reproduced among
M. Henri Bouchot's Facsimiles of Bindings in that collection [PI. XVIII.]. As for Philippo di Giunta, it
is probable, that he imitated the bindings, as well as the types, of Aldus: indeed, when we
remember the relations of the Florentine printer with Venice, it is not unlikely that the bindings
of his Dante, and Caesar, may have been executed by Venetian workmen.