An Essay in the History of Gold-Tooled
Bindings by Herbert P. Horne
London 1894
afterwards was brought to still finer issues, in the bindings executed for Grolier. This style, which
may be termed the second Aldine style, is to be found upon the books of other Venetian
printers, than of Aldus; as on a copy of Hesiod, printed by B. Zanetti, in 1537, and reproduced in
the Catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club [Case E, No. 24.].
The history of Venetian binding, from this time, is inseparable from that of the bindings executed
for Grolier: and a description of his earlier books is the best account, that can be given of the
later bindings, associated with the name of Aldus. The tooling upon a copy of the Institutes of
Quintilian, printed at the Aldine Press in 1521, and reproduced in the Catalogue of the Burlington
Club [Case E, No, 32.], presents all the elements from which the early Grolieresque manner was
developed. Some of the tools employed in this book are similar to those used upon the earlier
Aldine bindings; but, in conjunction with them, is a border formed of an interlaced fillet. The
introduction of this fillet is what outwardly distinguishes the Grolieresque, from other Venetian
manners: and in such bindings as that of the copy of the De Viris Clan's Ordinis Praedzeatorum,
reproduced in M. He~ri Bouchot's work, Le Livre, we seem to detect the development of this
interlaced fillet, from the earlier knots of Arabic work: but conjectures of this kind might be
infinitely repeated.
Jean Grolier, Vicomte d'Aguisy, the son of Etienne Grolier, and Antoinette Esbarde, his wife,
was born at Lyons, in 1479. In 1510, at the age of thirty-one, he succeeded his father in the
office of Treasurer-General of the Duchy of Milan; and on lIth October 1516, he married Anne
Brionnet, by whom he had five children.
About the year 1534, Grolier was sent ambassador by Francis 1., to Pope Clement VII.; and,
some three years later, he was employed in the Treasury, at Paris. In 1545, he obtained the
reversion of the office of Treasurer-General of France; in which he succeeded Charles du Plessis,
some two years later; and continued in the same until his death, which took place at Paris, on
the 22nd October 1565, in his house, the H6tel de Lyon, near the Porte de Bucy. Grolier was one
of those princely scholars, of whom Peiresc afterwards became the type. In Italy, he acquainted
himself with the art and erudition of that country: and the encouragement, which he lent to
artists and men of letters, was justified by the correctness of his own taste. Franchinus Gaforus,
the author of the treatise, De Harmonia Musicorum Instrumentorum, addressed him as 'Musarum
Cultor'; and Geoffroy Tory, as 'amateur de bonnes Iettres, & de tous personnages sauans':
while Andreas Assaracus names Musurus, Stephanus Niger, Thylesius, Aldus, Lascaris, and
Arpinus, among the number of the poets, historians, and other writers, whom he befriended.