Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/326

* BOOK. 288 BOOKBINDING. book becomes an influence for directing public opinion. It is through the printed sheet that the thought of a Luther or a Calvin becomes a means of revolutionizing the opinions of a large pro- portion of his generation. The chief difference in the external appearance of books since the Sixteenth Century is the gen- eral abandonment of the large sizes which were common in the days when books were not sup- posed to appeal to such a large and varied class as at present. The folio and quarto have almost entirely gone out of use, except for very elaborate and costly books. The technical names of the various sizes are based upon the number of times the old-fashioned large sheet of paper was folded for the binding. The sheet folded once, to make two leaves or four pages, constitutes a folio; folded into four leaves, a quarto; into eight, an octavo; into twelve, a duodecimo, and so on through the smaller sizes. It is usual to write the Arabic numeral with the Latin termination, as 4to, 8vo, IGmo, etc. The old sizes are not so strictly followed nowadays, though the names are retained for convenience. Consult: Birt, Das antike Buchti-esen in seinem Verhaltiiis ziir Litteratur (Berlin. 1882) ; Arnett, An Inquiry itito the Hattire and Form of the Books of the Ancients (London, 1837) ; Vwi- nam. Authors and Their Public in Ancient Times (New York, 1893) : Putnam, Books and Their Makers in the Middle Ages (New York, 1896) ; Madan. Books in Manuscript (London, 1893) ; Duff, Early Printed Books (London, 1893) ; Pol- lard, Early Illustrated Books (London, 1893) ; and the authorities referred to under the titles given below. See also Printing; Bookselling; BiBLioGB.pHT: Bookbinding; Litebaey Pbop- ERTY. BOOKBINDING. The history of bookbind- ing is chiefly the history of the ornamentation of book-covers. The mechanical work of sewing and covering a book, described below, might indeed be .studied chronologically as regards the changes in the processes employed; but this is of little general interest. When strips of vellum were replaced by cords at the bick of the book, though perhaps discoverable, is a less attractive ques- tion than that as to the place and time when gold tooling was introduced. Thus in the Twelfth Century there appear in England the earliest stamped leather bindings, and for our present purpose this is the beginning of the history of the art. The workmen of that time were familiar with the arts of softening leather and then .shap- ing it into the most complicated forms. Under the name of cuir-houilli, corrupted in England into quirboily and the like, the material was used for much of the war equipment of man and horse, as well as for decorative arts in peace. It was, therefore, easy to take the further step of draw- ing the soft leather tight on a thin oak board, impressing upon it stamps most commonly of wood and engraved in relief. In this way de- signs in the taste of the epoch, Romanesque or semi-Byzantine scrolls and conventional birds, are found stamped in leather. In the Thirteenth Century the design becomes more notably Gothic; in the Fourteenth Century the emblems of lion.s, fleurs-de-lys, roses, castles, and all the other de- vices of heraldry, divide the field with religicms emblems. All this is in what is called 'blind' tooling; that is to say, in patterns impressed but not colored nor gilded. Gold tooling seems to have come into Eurnpo from the East, probably in the Fifteenth Century. The custom of coloring the impressed pattern seems to have been introduced about the same time. The art of inlaying was the natural result of this taste for colored patterns, and is prob- ably of the Sixteenth Century. It was for many years chiefly confined to Italy, where it was used with the greatest freedom, the color patterns being partly in inlaid leather, partly in painting, and everywhere bordered and touched with gold. According to tradition, oak boards were first abandoned in favor of ])aper by the workmen who covered the books of the fanmxis i)rinter Aldus of Venice, in the Sixteenth Century. Previous to this time even small books had their stiff covers a quarter of an inch thick, and often beveled to a sharp edge to disguise this disproportionate thickness. The 'half-l)inding' of the time was, then, that with leather back, this cover extending not more than an inch over the oak boards, which were otherwise exposed with no decorative efl'ect except the grain in the wood. The cheaper kind of full binding was of brown leather stamped sometimes with separate though not very small tools and with letters put on by separate type, so as to form inscriptions, and sometimes with larger stamps, as where a Christ bearing His Cross and a David th liis harp are on the two flats of a cover, dated 1.568, each stamp measur- ing 1% X 2% inches: these and the inscriptions around being gilded in a singular way by a pro- cess of lacquering, probably Oriental in its origin. Vellum, parchment, and white pigskin were used, replacing the brown leather, and these light- colored materials were often covered all over with minute patterns, in which apparently metal stamps were freely used. Jean Grolier de Servi&res was treasurer of Francis I., King of France, and for him were pre- pared bindings of great richness and beauty. It appears that the volumes of a library, large for its epoch, were bound for him in this sumptuous way, the characteristic ornamentation being in- terlacing bands, dark, and edged with gold upon a lighter ground, or scrolls of gold lines only; the name of the book being lettered in the centre panel of one or both of the sides, and the familiar motto, Portio mea domine in terra fiventium, alternating with or accom|)anying the phrase, fo. Grolierii et amicorum "[the property] of .John Grolier and his friends." The dei'iiration and the friendly legend were both rather closely imitated by llaioli, an Italian, of wliom but little is known. In the Seventeenth Century the use of coats of arms fully displayed in gold, and occasionally in all the colors of the different bearings, became the most common adornment, though indeed such ornamentation dates from an earlier epoch. The tendency of design in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries was away from polychro- matic effects and toward insistence upon the beauty of the grained leather set off by the slightly impressed points and lines of gold. It is during the last quarter of the Nineteenth Cen- tury that effects of color, generally procured by means of inlay, have l)een restored to favjor. Metal mountings of all sorts are adjuncts whose prin<ii)al object is dignity and sumptuous- ness. When books are very heavy and very pre- cious, clasps have their utility, and bosses, four or five on each side, keep the leather and its