Читать книгу Thomas Berthelet, Royal Printer and Bookbinder to Henry VIII., King of England онлайн

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In some Eastern countries bordering on Europe, especially the north of Africa and parts of Asia, books were bound in leather and ornamented with gold at a very early date. Signs of such work are found on bindings of the twelfth century onwards, but it is always rare, and only sparingly used. The manner of working the gold differs considerably from the way it is treated now. Persian, Arabian, and Egyptian work of this sort is of great interest, and well deserves more attention and examination than it has yet received. It even seems that some kind of gilding on books was practised in England as early as 1480, as appears from one of the accounts of Piers Courteys, keeper of the King’s Great Wardrobe in the City of London; but there is not enough information given to enable us to say what sort of gilding this was, neither do the existing specimens throw any definite light on this particular point.

The account in which this reference to gilding on books occurs is one of the entries referring to the Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV., and afterwards wife to Henry VII.; the words are as follows:—