Cambridge Bookbindings : A simple small format Cambridge binding, ca.1545

Curtius Rufus, Quintus., Bruno, Christoph -1606

Cambridge Bookbindings

<p style='text-align: justify;'><p>Small format books of the middle decades of the sixteenth century were often simply decorated using only small tools and fillets (lines), in this kind of way. A couple of decades earlier, such books would typically have panel stamps, but these fell out of use in Cambridge by about 1540. The small fleur-de-lys stamp used here, of quite distinctive design, was widely used in Cambridge in the 1530s and 40s, associated with the last phase of Spierinck’s bindery, and many examples survive. Its design is very much in line with the kind of ornamental vocabulary which came to dominate European binding work in the middle of the sixteenth century, sometimes called arabesque or renaissance ornament.</p><p>Pasteboards, made of compacted printed waste, covered with dark brown calfskin, blind-tooled. Rebacked, with new spine leather, retaining fragments of medieval manuscript used as pastedowns; tanned leather sewing supports; remains (holes) of cloth ties.</p><p>Dr David Pearson</p></p>