[Illustration: Binding in Black Morocco, with Medallions and Coat-of-arms, by Thomas Berthelet (Sixteenth Century)]
I need not dwell upon the splendid jewelled and silver mounted manuscripts of the scriptures of Byzantine times, which called in the work of other craftsmen, since I presume one is dealing rather with the design of surface ornament as a matter of mass and line adapted to the ordinary conditions of the book-cover.
The method of stamping the coat-of-arms of the owner boldly upon the centre of the sides in gold upon leather covers, used from the sixteenth century and onwards, has a dignified effect, and these stamps, whether heraldic or of abstract ornamental elements, are often beautiful examples of rich and effective spacing within narrow limits, the enclosing shape or boundary indicated only by the edges of the device, which fits into its invisible shell, as it were, without effort and without any sense of cramping.
The designers of the stamps either blind or in gold must have been in close touch with the designer of printers’ ornaments--initial letters, headings, borders, and the like--if not in some cases identical with them, and to this no doubt we owe that sense of scale and proportion in the ornamentation of the earlier bindings.
In gold-tooled designs the necessity of their having to be composed or built up of certain restricted elements, or separate tools, the ingenious combination of which produces the delicate arabesques of line and leaf and floral forms we admire as the crown and glory of the binder’s craft, has also contributed to the preservation of scale, since the tools must necessarily be limited in size.
[Illustration: Binding in Black Morocco, with Arms of Edward VI, by Thomas Berthelet (Sixteenth Century)]
Before the recent revival in this craft, in which so much is due to the taste and skill of Mr. Cobden-Sanderson, there was a tendency towards over-small, frittered and meaningless detail in gold tooling, and binders were given to mechanical repeats of stock tools and stamps.
Yet repetition of forms or lines may be used tastefully as well as in a commonplace way.
Few methods in tooling a book-cover are more appropriate and satisfactory than the diaper, which is sometimes used all over the cover, and sometimes covers the inner panel only.