ABSTRACT
In the fifteenth century, new techniques and decorative elements were introduced into the Italian book-binder’s repertoire that were eventually to permeate throughout Europe. The work of the distinguished book-binding scholar, Anthony Hobson has shown how the humanist binders of Renaissance Italy drew inspiration for these ‘new’ bindings from the styles and techniques used by Ottoman and Mamluk binders.1 By the middle of the fifteenth century, decorated bindings were being produced in Italy for manuscripts which celebrated the revival of classical literature and learning, written in a new style of handwriting, ‘the humanistic script’. The techniques of gold tooling,2 filigree work and pressure-moulding were now used for their decoration. Pasteboard replaced wooden boards for the covers and the Islamic layout of ornament, concentrated at the centre and the corners within a frame, replaced the old all-over Gothic type patterns.3 Prior to this, bindings had been covered in plain leather or textiles over wooden boards with metal clasps or were decorated with horizontal or vertical rows of repeated small tools derived from French Gothic style of binding practised in Paris from the 1370s.
