Fig. 105.—English binding by Thos. Berthelet, 1552. Made for Edward VI.
From Italy the art of gold tooling rapidly spread through Europe, and took hold particularly in England and France. There is no doubt that an Italian gilder came to England and taught Thomas Berthelet, binder and printer to Henry VIII. Not only are numbers of Berthelet’s stamps of distinctly Italian character, but in many of his lists of books he describes particular examples as being bound “after the Italian fascion.” But Berthelet quickly enough evolved a style of his own. It appears to me that English binders have from the time of Berthelet until now succeeded better than those of any other nation in the ornamentation of large books. In small books the palm must be given to Italian and French binders, but large books have always puzzled the best of these, and even Le Gascon has not been successful with them.
Many of the large books bound by Thomas Berthelet are as fine as any such books can be. His best work was, naturally enough, done for royalty, but he set the fashion for smaller binders, and although there is a want of minute finish and technical accuracy in everything he did, Berthelet’s fine work will always give him a place in the first rank of bookbinders of this or any other country.
Fig. 106.—English inlaid and gold tooled binding by John Day. Made for Queen Elizabeth.
After Berthelet’s time gold tooling became general in England, but the binders who used it are anonymous. There are some fine calf bindings with inlays of white leather which were made in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, on which appear the initials I. D. P., perhaps “John Day Pegit,” and which are credited to John Day, but it is by no means certain that they were done by that eminent printer. The style of leather bindings of Elizabeth’s reign departed finally from that of Berthelet, and more variety is found than at any other period. The Oriental fashion of double boards was re-introduced, the centre panels being filled with delicate paintings, portraits or coat-of-arms, and the remainder of the boards variously ornamented with inlays of white leather, toolings in gold and silver, and impressions from stamps cut in arabesques. Some of these bindings are coloured, that is to say, the arabesques, curves or flowers are painted by hand with some kind of enamel paint. The main source of such coloured bindings was Lyons, from which centre numbers of them were issued, but the fashion was one which appealed to the English liking for colour, and many fine examples, often heraldic, were made here. In royal bindings at all times heraldry has played an important part, but from the middle of the sixteenth century onwards it plays an equally important part on bindings made for ordinary armigerous people.
Fig. 107.—Italian inlaid and gold tooled binding in Oriental style. Made for Queen Elizabeth.