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

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In England during the fifteenth century the printing, binding, and publishing of printed books generally vested in the same individual, but by degrees these processes became specialized, and towards the end of the sixteenth century they were carried out by different persons. Now and then, among the earlier specimens of Berthelet’s work, designs of a similar kind occur on the outside of the binding in gold, and inside the book printed in black. The occurrence of such a peculiarity would point strongly to the probability of the printer having also been the binder, or at all events that the control of both processes was in the hands of the same master.

Although no Mediæval English bindings of the richer sort are now left, several of the simpler kind bound in leather still remain. Most of these are ornamented with impressions from small cameo stamps impressed in blind,—that is to say, without gold. Most of such bindings are bound in dark brown leather, either goatskin, corresponding to our morocco, or sheepskin, corresponding to our roan. Each of these old leathers is sound and fine in colour, and always brown; colour dyes for leather, except red, being a later, and probably hurtful, innovation.