- About Bookbinding -

Grolier Himself

The Grolier Club is named after Jean Grolier de Servier, Viscount d'Aguisy, Treasurer General of France, who was a book lover choosing the best impressions of the best editions of the best books and having them bound by the best binders under his own supervision. Grolier was one of the earliest of the great bibliophiles of France. The French have always been first in their affection for choice tomes, and they have been foremost also in the skill and the taste of their book making. Mr. Lang, in his delightfully easy and learned treatise on "The Library," has quoted Dante's reference to "the art that is called illuminating in Paris":

L 'onor di quell' arte Ch' allumare e chiamata in Parisi.

In the century and a half which elapsed between Dante's death and Grolier's birth printing had been invented, and the art which is called illuminating had begun to be neglected, but without impairing the supremacy of Paris. Grolier was of I tali an origin, and he served for years in Italy, at Milan first, and then at Rome. In 1534 he had been appointed French ambassador to Clement V II., and it was then that he began to collect books. After his return to his own country he held several high offices, and he was Treasurer General of France when he died in 1565 at the age of eighty six. His library remained intact until 1675, when it was sold and scattered.

The researches of M. Le Roux de Lincy, Grolier's erudite biographer, enable us to declare that it was the library, not of a collector of literary varieties, but of a scholar who wished to have at hand the best books of his time. Apparently there were on Grolier's shelves few or none of the books which, in M. Alphonse Daudet's sharp phrase, are "intended for external use only." Unlike many modern collectors, Grolier read the treasures he had garnered; and their contents were worthy of the artistic casing he gave them. He was the comrade of the chief scholars of his time. Erasmus praised him; and Aldus Manutius, the great printer, dedicated a book to him. A friend of authors, editors, and publisher printers, Grolier was always very wary in his picking of copies, and he had a provision of fine paper whereon a special impression was made for him alone where the common edition did not satisfy his fastidiousness. These chosen sheets were then clad in leather suits by the best binders of the day, who decorated them with designs full of the delightful freedom of the richest period of the Franco Italian renascence.

It is small wonder that a library called into being with such exceeding care and so adorned by the cunning of the most adroit workmen should have high repute, and that when it was dispersed, a hundred years and more after Grolier's death, the separate books were eagerly purchased at what in those days seemed full prices. But in the two centuries since the sale the value of these volumes has been rapidly rising, until a single tome has been sold by auction for nearly six thousand dollars - this is the noble copy of Heliodorus owned by Mr. Hoe. In Paris the National Library, and in London the British, Museum, are fortunate in the possession of books bearing Grolier's philanthropic motto; and in New York others may be seen in the library of Columbia College and in the Astor Library. Not a few which are owned by members of the Grolier Club; and engravings of some of these are given herewith; and these plates will show far better than any wandering words of mine the characteristics of the famous Grolier bindings. But although these reproductions reveal the grace and the delicacy of the design, they cannot revive the noble richness of the gildings nor the artful contrast of the colors.