An Essay in the History of Gold-Tooled
Bindings by Herbert P. Horne
London 1894
uses concerning the type, paper, and margins of the new edition, show with what fastidious
taste, he considered the outward appearance of a book. 'Addi volo,' he writes, 'decorem et
elegantiam: id praestabit delecta papyrus, litterarum concinnitas, et quae minime sint attritae,
spaciosi margines; atque, ut planius dicam, volo eadem forma et notis describi quibus olim
Politiani opera impressistis.' This edition of Budaeus's treatise was published, with a dedication
to Grolier, in 1522: and at a later time, in 1544, a translation of the Andria and the Eunuchus of
Terence into Italian, by Giovanni Giustiniano di Candia, was, also, dedicated to him, by Franciscus
Asulanus.
The bindings of the books, which belonged to Grolier, are of two kinds: those, which he caused
to be especially bound for himself; and those, which he purchased already bound, or which were
presented to him in fine bindings. Of this latter kind are the Celsus, in the Grenville Library, in
which he was content to write his name and legend; and the dedicatory copy of the work by
Franchinus Gaforus, De Harmonia Musicorum blstrumentorum, now in the Bibliotheque de I'
Arsenal, in which his arms, with those of his wife, are emblazoned. The bindings of these books,
for the most part of Italian workmanship, are very variously ornamented.
Among the earlier bindings, which Grolier caused to be especially executed for himself, those of
the copies of the Latin and Italian classics printed by Aldus, with italic types, in eights, are not
only remarkably similar, one to another; but, also, do not differ, in the essential characteristics of
their design and workmanship, from the finer Venetian bindings of that time, in which ordinary
copies of the Aldine classics are to be found. From this circumstance, it is commonly concluded,
that such bindings, bearing the name and legend of Grolier, of which the British Museum
possesses many admirable examples, were executed for him by the successors of Aldus
Manutius. They are covered either with brown calf mottled with black; or with morocco, which
varies in colour from a reddish brown, to an olive green. The covers are of pasteboard; and the
leather is worked to so smooth a surface, that it is sometimes difficult to detect the nature of the
skin. At the beginning and end of each volume is a section, usually formed of a sheet of vellum
between two sheets of paper, which are once folded,