This
page offer to you the informations about
the
different kinds of paper and sewn-technical and binding, also you
can find a little history of bookbinding.
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Sewn
tecnique: alla greca
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Sewn
tecnique: a fettucce
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Sewn
tecnique: a nervi (spine)
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Cover
binding:
All
leather : all leather cover book.
Half
leather : not all leather cover book.
Parchment
: leather of lamb special tanning white.
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A BRIEF HISTORY OF BOOKBINDING
(partly adapted from Bozzacchi, 1980)
THE BOOK
The book is an object with a history of its own, based not only on its
contents, but in its proper aspect, graphia, pictures, materials and ornaments. The first form of book was a rolled perchment or
papir, trasformed by the Copts in the binded book as we presently know (CODICE). Archeological remains from Egypt allow to reconstruct the following ratios of existing rolls and CODICI, changing through the centuries (Roberts, 1954):
Early in those days, writing in codici instead of rolls was not so popular, as testifies S. Agustin in his letter number 171 to S. Jerolamous while apologizing for writing in the codice- instead of the
roll-form. This attitude was nevertheless to change more or less quickly, if one considers that the iconography of S. Jerolamous depicts a saint surrounded by codici.
It is difficult to understand why the codici were preferred to the rolls by the first
christians. Saint Paul asks his disciple for his "note-book" (latin term "membranae": 2Tim 4, 13), testifing that the binding of perchment was probably used by the
Romans.
The art of binding borns with the advent of fascicules, sets of leaflets tied by means of
threads. The oldest known bookbinding techniques were executed by copt
craftmans, the old cristians that long influenced this art. The Copt Museum in Cairo helds one of the oldest
bindings, a IV century manuscript formed by 19 fascicules of two papir leaflets each and with a brown leather
binding, in a perfect state of preservation (Regemorter, 1954).
Each fascicule of the greek-bizantine codici were incised in order to let the tread pass through. This operation was made possible by the use of a tool called the "greca", holding the fascicules together tight, a technique called "grecaggio".
THE "NERVI" (spine)
The presence of nervi on the dorso of the book dates back to the carolingian period
(VIII - IX century). The binding was executed without looms and the axes were of the same breadth of the
fascicules, but a novelty was introduced in the form of an external support around which fastening the binding
thread: the nervi type of binding is used for the first time. This is the first important revolution in the art of
book-binding, for nervi are supports that streinghten the structure of the book dorso, allowing for the introduction of heavy ornaments on
the side of the book, typical of the Middle Ages.
Another important step in our history is the introduction of the "Pergamena floscia"
technique, invented in Siena, Tuscany, around the year 1000. "Pergamena floscia" stand for "..............
parchment" and refers to the complete absence of glue in the binding.
Following the birth of paper factories the production of books sharply increases and the research of fast methods of book-binding is imposed to
craftsmans. The use of looms becomes widespread, allowing to separate the phases of binding of the book and to subdivide mansions within the "scriptoria" (book
factories). Before this introduction, the axis of the book had to be built first and the fascicules tied around it in a second
instance. The nervi, first made of canapa, were then substituted by rolled leather stripes .
