Page:Historical essay on the art of bookbinding (IA 0130ARTO).pdf/7



NGELUS ROCCHA, whom Morhof accuses of having introduced extraneous and uninteresting matter in the frequently quoted “Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana” (Rome, 1591), infers from a passage of chapter xxxi of Deuteronomy that the malady of bibliomania existed in the times before the deluge. It certainly was nearly coeval with the art of writing; and that fascinating department of bibliomania, the art of bookbinding, with the art of making square books (codices), when Phillatius, to whom, says Trotzius, the grateful Athenians erected a statue, invented a process by which the sheets of a book were made to adhere together. The covers were originally of wood, ivory or metal, with a view to solidity only. It was a simple process,