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APPLIED TO
A N C IEN T AND MODER N B O O K B IN D IN G .
ON
ORNAM ENTAL
ART,
APPLIED TO ANCIENT AND MODERN BOOKBINDING. ILLUSTRATED W ITH SPECIMENS OF VARIOUS DATES AND COUNTRIES, c
BY JO S E P H
CUNDALL.
READ TO THE MEETING OF THE SOCIETY OF ARTS HELD NOVEMBER 1847.
PUBLISHED AT THE HOUSE OF THE SOCIETY OF ARTS, JOHN ST. ADELPHI, AND SOLD BY JOSEPH CUNDALL, 12, OLD BOND STREET, AND ALL BOOKSELLERS.
ON ORNAMENTAL ART APPLIED TO ANCIENT AND MODERN BOOKBINDING. H E earliest records of Bookbinding that exist prove that the A rt has been practised for nearly two thousand years. In past ages books were written on long scrolls of parchment or papyrus, and were rolled up, (hence the word volume, from the latin volutus,') and fastened with a thong, which was made of coloured leathers, and oftentimes much ornamented. These scrolls were usually attached to one or occasionally two rollers of wood or ivory, or sometimes of gold, much as our large maps are now mounted, and the bosses at the end of the rollers were frequently highly decorated. This decoration may be called the first step towards Ornamental Art applied to the exterior of books. A learned Athenian, named Phillatius, to whom his countrymen erected a statue, at length found out a means of binding books with glue : the sheets of vellum or papyrus were gathered two or four together, sewn much in the same way as at the present day; and then, in order to preserve these sheets, there came, as a matter of course, a covering for the book. The probability is, that the first book-covers were of wood, plain
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PLATE I.
A1
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OLD GERMAN DESIGN.