| Goff G-455 Gregorius IX, Decretales cum glossa Venice: Petrus de Piasiis, 1482 4° Leaf: 242x175mm Ref: HC 8016*; Pr 4476; BMC V 268; GW 11464; BSB-Ink G-342 |
Huntington Library 100842 |
Provenance
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Binding
Stamps: none
Other details |
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| Notes: Several features of this binding make it clearly Italian. At one time this was a half leather binding, with leather covering the spine and extending about a third of the way across both boards. The leather edges were anchored with nails, now missing. With the covering leather removed we can see a characteristic Italian sewing structure. The textblock is sewn onto three split tawed-leather thongs, the ends of which are laced into beech boards and pegged in place with small wooden trenails. (The three small holes visible in the thongs near the edges of the board indicate where these thongs were held into the binder's sewing frame during that part of the process.) The thongs are not laced through and back into the inside of the boards, but rather cut off and pegged to the outside, the typical method of board attachment for Italian bindings of the period. The endbands are now missing, but the channels for lacing the ends of the endband cores into the boards are visble at the head and tail. The boards are of beech, by far the most common wood species used in Italian bindings. Furthermore, Italian boards tend to be somewhat thinner than those in bindings from other regions. What can't be seen in the photo is the bevelling of the boards on the inside of their edges--another common Italian feature. Finally, we see at the fore edge of this upper cover the anchoring pins for the straps that made up the clasp mechanism of the binding, here showing the distinguishing character of this feature for Italian bindings, with the anchors on the upper cover and the catch plates on the lower. The manuscript titling on the upper wooden board probably indicates the book was at one time shelved flat and lying on its lower cover. |
