An Essay in the History of Gold-Tooled
Bindings by Herbert P. Horne
London 1894
executed for his queen, Mary Stuart. They appear to have been finished by the gilders, who had
worked for Henri II.and we must turn to the books of Charles IX., who succeeded his brother in
1560, not only for a new manner, but, also, for a new style. This style, which was adapted from
the medieval device of the' semis,' the repetition of some given figure over a field at regular
intervals, continued in use upon the books of the royal libraries, during the following century:
and it is in the invention of this style, that French gilding first appears to free itself from the
traditions. of Italian Art. A remarkable binding tooled in this way covers a book, which was
placed in the library at Fontainebleau, by Katherine de Medicis, in memory of Henri II., and 'which
is reproduced by M. Gruel, in his Manuel. The' semis,' with which this book is ornamented,
consists in the repetition of two crowned cyphers, the one formed by the C of Charles IX., the
other of the K of Katherine repeated and reversed. The Binder in Ordinary to Charles IX. was
Claude Picques, as appears from a Psalter published by him in 1559, which bears the following
imprint: 'Apud Claudium de Picques liguatorem Reg. in vico S. Jacobi, sub signo D. Trinitatis.'
Earlier, in 1557, he was working for Katherine de Medicis [Bib!. Nat. MS. fro 10396.]: and his
name occurs again as ' Relieur de Roy,' in 1568, in the TraiM de la Peste, of Ambroise Pare, at
which time he was still living in the Rue Saint Jacques. The earliest examples of royal bindings
ornamented with the' semis,' in the British Museum, are those executed by Nicolas Eve, for Henri
III., who succeeded his brother in 1574. But before I speak of the work of NicholasEve,I will give
some account ofthe man. The statements, which have come down to us concerning this binder
and his family, are not only very confused, but even contradictory: it is impossible to establish
any agreement between the accounts of La Caille and Lottin; nor do the assertions of these
writers accord with the few facts of undoubted authority, which have been collected. But, in this
place, a review of these authentic passages will be more profitable, than an attempt to touch
upon errors, or to entangle discrepancies. We gather our earliest information concerning Nicolas
Eve from a book, published by him in 1578, entitled Traz"tl des Misaventures des Person11ages
signalez; being a translation by Claude Vi tart, of Boccacio's De Casibus II/ustdum Virorum. He
was then living at the sign of the Adam and Eve, in the Clos Bruneau, Rue Chartiere: and in the
imprint of this and other works published by him, he distinctly styles himself bookseller and
binder, 'Libraire de l'Universite de Paris et Relieur du Roy.' There exists, however, a somewhat
later, but far more important, document, in regard to his office of Binder to the king, in the
following entry of a payment made to him, in 1579, for binding certain copies of the Statutes and
Ordinances of the 'Ordre du Sainct Esprit,' printed at Paris, about that time, for Henri III., which
is preserved in a book of the household accounts of that king: