[1] Works especially devoted to these facsimiles are:—Berjeau’s Early Dutch, German and English Printers’ Marks (London, 1866); W. Roberts’s Printers’ Marks (London, 1893); Silvestre’s Marques typographiques (French; Paris, 1853-1867); Die Büchermarken oder Buchdrucker und Verlegerzeichen (Strassburg, 1892-1898), the successive parts containing the devices used in Alsace, Italy, Basel, Frankfort, Mainz and Cologne; and Marques typographiques des imprimeurs et libraires qui ont exercé dans les Pays-Bas (Gand, 1894). Numerous devices are also reproduced in histories of printing and in volumes of facsimiles of early types.

[2] An edition of a bull of Pope Pius II. in the John Rylands library, Manchester, in types used by Fust and Schoeffer at Mainz, bears printed on the top of the first page the words “Dis ist die bul zu dutsch die unser allerheiligster vatter der bapst Pius herusgesant hait widder die snoden ungleubigen turcken.” This is attributed to the year 1463, and is claimed as the first book with a printed title-page.

BOOKBINDING. Bindings or covers to protect written or printed matter have always followed the shapes of the material on which the writing or printing was done. Very early inscriptions on rocks or wood needed no coverings, and the earliest Origins. instances of protective covers are to be found among the smaller Assyrian tablets of about the 8th century B.C. These tablets, with cuneiform inscriptions recording sales of slaves, loans of money and small matters generally, are often enclosed in an outer shell of the same shape and impressed with a short title. Egyptian papyrus rolls were generally kept in roll form, bound round with papyrus tape and often sealed with seals of Nile mud; and the rolls in turn were often preserved in rectangular hollows cut in wood. The next earliest material to papyrus used for writing upon was tree bark. Bark books, still commonly used by uncultured nations, often consisting of collections of magical formulae or medical receipts, are generally rolls, folded backwards and forwards upon themselves like the sides of a concertina. At Pompeii in 1875 several diptychs were found, the wooden leaves hollowed on the inner sides, filled with blackened wax, and hinged together at the back with leather thongs. Writings were found scratched on the wax, one of them being a record of a payment to Umbricia Januaria in A.D. 55. This is the earliest known Latin manuscript. The diptychs are the prototypes of the modern book. From about the 1st to the 6th century, ornamental diptychs were made of carved ivory, and presented to great personages by the Roman consuls.

Plate.

Fig. 1.—WINCHESTER DOMESDAY BOOK OF THE 12TH CENTURY.
Dark brown morocco, blind stamped.		Fig. 2.—ST. CUTHBERT’S GOSPELS.
Red leather with repoussé design, probably the work of the 7th or 8th century. The fine lines are impressed by hand, and painted blue and yellow.		Fig. 4.—BINDING MADE FOR JAMES I.
Dark blue morocco, gold tooled. The red in the coat-of-arms inlaid with red morocco.
Fig. 3.—BINDING MADE FOR JEAN GROLIER.
Pale brown morocco, gold tooled.		Fig. 5.—COMMON PRAYER (LONDON, 1678).
Smooth red morocco, gold tooled with black fillets. Bound by Samuel Mearne.
Fig. 6.—LE LIVRE DES STATUTS ET ORDONNANCES DE L’ORDRE DU BENVIST SAINCT ESPRIT (PARIS, 1578).
Brown morocco, gold tooled, arms of Henry III., King of France. Bound by Nicholas Eve.		Fig. 7.—CATALOGUE OF THE PICTURES AT HAGLEY HALL.
Red niger morocco, gold tooled. Bound by Douglas Cockerell.		Fig. 8.-WALTON’S COMPLEAT ANGLER (1772).
Golden brown morocco, gold tooled. Bound by Miss E.M. MacColl.

Rolls of papyrus, vellum or paper were written upon in three ways, (1) In short lines, at right angles to the length of the roll. (2) In long lines each the entire length of the roll. (3) In short lines parallel to the length of the roll, each column or page of writing having a space left on each side of it. Rolls written in the first of these ways were simply rolled up and kept in cylinders of like shape, sometimes several together, with a title tag at the end of each, in a box called a scrinium. In the case of the second form, the most obvious instances of which are to be found in the Buddhist prayer-wheels, the rolls were and are kept in circular boxes with handles through the centres so that they can revolve easily. In the third manner of arranging the manuscript the page forms show very clearly, and it is still used in the scrolls of the law in Jewish synagogues, kept on two rollers, one at each end. But this form of writing also developed a new method for its own more convenient preservation. A roll of this kind can be folded up, backwards and forwards, the bend coming in the vacant spaces between the columns of writing. When this is done it at once becomes a book, and takes the Chinese and Japanese form known as orihon—all the writing on one side of the roll or strip of paper and all the other side blank. Some books of this kind are simply guarded by two boards, but generally they are fastened together along one of the sides, which then becomes the back of the book. The earliest fastening of such books consists of a lacing with some cord or fibre run through holes stabbed right through the substance of the roll, near the edge. Now the orihon is complete, and it is the link between the roll and the book. This “stabbed” form of binding is the earliest method of keeping the leaves of a book together; it occurs in the case of a Coptic papyrus of about the 8th century found at Thebes, but it is rarely used in the case of papyrus, as the material is too brittle to retain the threads properly.

The method of folding vellum into pages seems to have been first followed about the 5th century. The sheets were folded once, and gatherings of four or more folded sheets were made, so that stitches through the fold at the back would hold all the sheets together and each leaf could be conveniently turned over. Very soon an obvious plan of fixing several of these gatherings, or quires, together was followed by the simple expedient of fastening the threads at the back round a strong strip of leather or vellum held at right angles to the line of the backs. This early plan of “sewing” books is to-day used in the case of valuable books; it is known as “flexible” work, and has never been improved upon.