ABSTRACT
Italian and Spanish binding and tool design of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries owe much to Islamic influence. Anthony Hobson has shown this clearly in the case of Italian fifteenth-century bindings.1 In Spain, the Mudéjar bindings that have been described and published2 display similar small tools, bent or straight, with dots or short broken lines, interlinked or crossing over, looking like pieces of twisted rope of the kind that occurred in Tunisia as early as the ninth century,3 and remained much in use throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in north Africa, but also in Egypt and Syria.4 We find such tools used in Italy and Spain, both in blind and with gold leaf.
