CHAPTER III.
THE BOOKBINDINGS OF THOMAS BERTHELET, WITH DETAILED DESCRIPTIONS OF SOME TYPICAL EXAMPLES.
As has been shown, Thomas Berthelet lived in troublous times for bookbinding. He doubtless knew of the rich Mediæval bindings, which in his day were rapidly becoming scarce, and he was of course familiar with the old blind-stamped leather work as well as the brown panel stamps which were common at his time. He probably knew, also, the beautiful gold-tooled Italian bindings which came over from the Continent as rarities about the beginning of the sixteenth century. It will never be known with certainty whether Italian workmen came over here and taught Berthelet the art of gold-tooling on leather. If this was not the case, then Berthelet experimented for himself and soon became proficient, but several of his earlier bindings betray the hand of a tyro in this difficult art. In favour of the theory that an Italian gilder came to this country about the time that Berthelet became royal printer to Henry VIII. is the fact that there was at least one binding made for James V., King of Scotland, adorned with gold-tooling, executed on calf by some craftsman endowed with greater technical skill than Berthelet ever showed. This binding is, however, of a weaker design than Berthelet’s are: his designs are never frittered as this one is; nevertheless, it must be noted that there are on the Scottish bindings some of the same stamps that Berthelet used, as well as others of a slighter and more ornate character. The volume is figured in the Dictionary of English Book Collectors, Part V., and in 1894 it belonged to the late Mr. Bernard Quaritch, of 15 Piccadilly, London.
Berthelet must have foreseen the very decorative possibilities that lay in the direction of gold-tooling on leather, promising indeed to compensate to a great extent for the loss of the beautiful and fast-disappearing Mediæval bindings in gold, silver, or ivory. He worked very energetically at his new art and quickly mastered it, the gilding on the majority of his books being excellent. His stamps were cut “solid,” closely after Italian models, even if those he started with were not actually Italian stamps purchased by him from his problematical teacher. In time these designs became largely modified, but always retained much of the Italian feeling. Indeed, although Berthelet eventually developed a style of his own, the Italian inspiration is evident throughout. He could not have gone to a better school, as it is, with much justification, often held that the Italian gold-tooled bindings on leather of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries are the finest in taste and altogether the most admirable ever produced. In consequence of the number of foreign books that came over here, it was incumbent on the native English workmen to do what they could to introduce a good style of indigenous work, and Berthelet was the most noted of the sixteenth-century binders who endeavoured to do this. The old English idea of the circle entered largely into his later and more ornamental designs, as also did the diamond, not in itself so original a style, as it frequently occurs elsewhere, amongst other places on books bound for Jean Grolier.
The bindings of the books printed by Thomas Berthelet have already in many instances been noticed as examples of fine workmanship, but he has not by any means always been credited with their authorship.
There are certain volumes which belonged to Henry VIII. at a period when Berthelet was royal printer, some of which were
PLATE XI.
VELVET BINDING OF A BIBLE PRINTED AT ZURICH IN 1543. MADE FOR HENRY VIII.