ABSTRACT
Bookbinding at the dawn of the Art in Europe was no more than a special branch of the craft of the goldsmith or the carver, and at first but a rude and tasteless exercise of these Arts. Manuscripts. often lavishly and gorgeously illuminated, were the only books in those days. They were few and costly, and their owners covered them with plates of gold and silver, incrusted with enamels, ivories and precious stones, or else with purple or crimson velvet elaborately embroidered with gold, silver and colored silken threads and sprinkled with pearls. Not many of these rich bindings have survived to our day. Under the edicts of zealous reformers “the gold and silver ornaments on Popish books were strip’t off and paid into the King’s Treasury.” To the irreparable loss of all bibliophiles in time to come, these incunabula of Bibliopegic Art were cast into the same fiery crucible to which were consigned so many refulgent ch1-12pages of missals and priceless “Books of Hours.” in order that the precious metal with which their golden letters were overlaid might be extracted. The massive bosses, clasps, hooks and chains upon the ponderous church service books of the 16th century, were of brass or some other metal too base to tempt spoliation, so that bindings of this character are more plentiful.
