Binding

BINDING. - By binding is meant the art of firmly sewing the gatherings of a book and enclosing them between two boards of solid material to preserve them longer: it therefore goes back to the era in which the book changed from its original form of the roll to the modern one.

This change, generally assigned to the 4th century A.D., and caused by the abandonment of papyrus and the spread of parchment and then of paper, was preceded by the wax tablets (v.) used by both the Greeks and the Romans. Enlarged in format, they were artistically carved on the outside when, toward the end of the Empire, state officials took to giving them as congratulatory gifts to friends. Since they were formed of two leaves, they are called consular diptychs; very beautiful examples are found in the Vatican Library, in the cathedral of Monza, in the Medieval Museum of Brescia and in many other parts of Europe. The consular diptychs cannot properly be called bindings: they are only a minor branch of late bas-relief sculpture; but important is the fact that some were employed to decorate later books by applying them to wooden bindings covered with fabric or leather. From this fictitious binding, which corresponds to the medieval habit of stripping ancient monuments to decorate new ones, one passed to those embellished with metal friezes, carved ivory panels, rare stones and multicolored enamels. This art does not yet have a character of its own, because it has the same style as sculpture, mosaic and goldsmithing; it follows the same evolution as the great figurative and architectural art, from the 7th to the 14th century. Splendid examples are preserved in the church of St. Mark in Venice, in the National Library of Paris, in that of Munich, of Berlin, etc.

The origin of the modern binding lies in the monastic binding, already in use in the 8th century. It is formed of two wooden boards, covered wholly or in part with leather on which geometric designs, little stars, leaves and other motifs are stamped in blind, sometimes by carving the leather itself. Often this decoration was enriched with studs at the corners and in the center, with clasps of bronze and brass, embossed or nielloed metal parts that served to protect the book from the damage of use. Public libraries used to fasten the books thus bound to the reading desk by means of iron chains;

The best-known chained bindings are found in the Laurentian Library in Florence. In the 15th century the medieval monastic binding comes to an end, giving way to that of the Renaissance. Little by little the primitive roughness is refined and softened, the field to be decorated is divided into compartments, the marks are more minute and varied. With Arabian leathers, far better suited to receiving the impressions of the punches, the practice of gilding these impressions enters the West. In the 14th-century Egyptian binding one can recognize the germ of the Italian and French Renaissance binding; the so-called "a cassettoni" bindings of Venice, in which the leather follows the hollows of the underlying cardboard and is stamped in gold and painted in colors and liquid gold, come directly from the Persian ones. At the beginning of the 16th century the use of wooden boards comes to an end, replaced by cardboard; the book, no longer manuscript but printed, more convenient and manageable, enters every home; bibliophily is no longer the preserve of monasteries, and with its spread among private individuals it gives life to the true modern art of binding, which throughout the Renaissance is like the noble coat of arms of bibliophiles. Among the earliest are to be counted the most elegant bindings known as "a medaglione," because at the center of the covers they bear a medallion in relief, made in various parts of Italy but especially in Rome and Venice; then the architectural bindings, in which the lines stamped in gold with heated tools form an architectural facade of the most beautiful effect, certainly influenced by the new vogue of Vitruvius; then the bindings erroneously believed to be by Demetrio Canevari (v.). Italy, which created the Renaissance binding using punches with plant designs, ever lighter, and which for the first time applied gilding, soon lost its primacy. In France, where Italian binders went, the bibliophile Thomas Mahieu (v. MAIOLO) places his name first on architectural bindings, then on harmonious bindings lightly covered with interlacements and hatched leaves. Even more beautiful are those that bear the name of Jean Grolier (v.). By now France has acquired a primacy that it will never lose again; immediately afterward it creates the type known as "à la fanfare," in which the covers are covered with a myriad of delicate plant interlacements, little leaves, flowers and dots. This type of binding prepares the way for the one attributed to Le Gascon, who worked under Louis XIV and who created the "a musaico" type by applying in the compartments inlays of morocco of various soft colors. The Le Gascon binding, especially in its second manner, which has the shape of an almond, is rightly judged the most elegant and pleasing of all. In the following centuries the art of binding feels more strongly the influence of the dominant taste, first with the ostentation of heraldic coats of arms, then by transferring onto the leather the affected style of lace and fans, in the Napoleonic era appropriating neoclassical elements, and so on. In the present century it is characterized by two distinct currents: the first consisting in the imitation of the best examples of the past, made even colder by the use of the rolling press which mechanically stamps the composition and can repeat it infinitely; the second, on the other hand, entirely free, often even asymmetrical, consists in representing on the front cover, with gilded outlines and inlays of leather of several colors, a truly symbolic illustration of the text. This style is very pleasing to the eye and gives the bound work a likable individuality; but, whether because of the high cost or because in many countries, such as England, the fragile and insignificant "publisher's binding" is in use, it may unfortunately be called a rarity.

ORIENTAL BINDING

Of the eastern binding, limited to the Mediterranean basin, mention has been made above insofar as in the 15th-16th centuries it exercised an influence on the Italian one.

Italy knew it through Venice; therefore its introduction into the West coincides with the power of that city; but it was much earlier. The oldest known binding is the Coptic one of the Berlin Library, which is traced back to the 6th century; it covers a manuscript on papyrus but cut in the form of a codex and is decorated with a geometric design, traced with a point. Later Coptic bindings present, in addition to the lines executed with the point, carvings made with a knife that sometimes recall mosaics and Muslim architectural decorations. The use of the knife would last a long time, even when the decoration was executed by means of impression and gold appeared. Then the eastern binding would take its definitive form, which would be preserved unchanged for several centuries. It is mainly characterized by a central mandorla and by a delicate floral embroidery inside and outside the mandorla; the leather is hollowed out or impressed to a great depth with the stamps; the lower surface is gilded or painted. Notable is the flap, an appendage of the second face, which, folding over in front, protects the book; only in Persian bindings do animals appear. Persia also created a type of binding that is called "woodland"; over the entire surface of the faces and and of the flap a scene is illuminated, often of hunting, sometimes of daily life with human figures, then lacquered. This technique, which had its greatest splendor in the 16th-17th centuries, gives the vagueness of a genre painting. - See plates LXVII-LXVIII.

Lamberto Donati