An Essay in the History of Gold-Tooled
Bindings by Herbert P. Horne
London 1894
Burlington Fine Arts Club, in 1891: and among them, that of a Book of Hours, Paris, 1497,
belonging to Mr. Huth, which bears a design of extraordinary beauty [Case E, No. 28.]. This book
is covered with black morocco' and the whole field of the boards is elaborately tooled in ~lind,
over which a border fillet, with the figure of a bIrd repeated in circles and semi-circles has been
applied in gold, with great art. The boards of a manuscript in the Museum, of Cephalo e l'Aurora,
by Niccolo da Correggio, etc., dated 18th August 1497 [Add. MS. 16,438.], are decorated with a
wreathed' niche, or tabernacle, formed by various tools of a Venetian character j and among
other examples in the same collection, the following are the more remarkable :-A Book of Hours,
bound in black morocco with a folding cover, and tooled in blind with a very beautiful and
elaborate design of a Venetian-Arabic character. Late fifteenth century [Royal MS. 2.A. vii.],
Cicero's Ept'stles, bound in red morocco; the panels of the boards are decorated with an
Oriental pattern, and surrounded by a border worked with solid Venetian tools. Circa, 1500
[Add. MS. 11,926.]. Three Ducal Commissions in Venetian bindings, ornamented with solid Aldine
knots, leaves and borders, and successively dated, 15°7, 1515, 1522. The earliest binding
bears, also, knots of rope-work, and scallop shells, in blind tooling [Add. MS. 20,979, Harleian
MS. 3403, Add. MS. 20,980. ].
About the year 1520, a more simple pattern was introduced into the decoration of Venetian
books, of which the binding on a copy of the Aldine Catullus of 1515, preserved in the South
Kensington Museum [7922-'62.], shows the chief characteristics. This pattern is to be found
repeated, with slight variations, upon two other books printed by Aldus, in the same collection:
a copy of the Epistolarum Graecarum Collectio, 1499, in quarto [30-'65.], and of the Thucydz'des,
Early ItaHan Bindings 1502, in folio l34-'65.]. In each example, the name of the author, or the
title of the book, is stamped within a circle upon the panel of the upper board: an arrangement
of simple lines in gold takes the place of the enriched border, which occurs upon the earlier
Aldine bindings; and a few leaves, worked by solid tools, chiefly at the angles of the panel,
complete the ornament. The fore edge of the boards is furnished with strings, or clasps; and the
folio volume has an additional clasp on the head, and tail, edges. In these, as in the earlier
bindings, the gilt tooling of the border lines, is invariably accompanied by some lines in blind; an
instructive example of that Italian economy, which produces the richest effects in art, by the
simplest means. That exuberant sense of decoration, which is characteristic of early Aldine
bindings, no longer distinguishes these later books, decorative as they are.