At Windsor there is a fine little binding on a copy of _Strena Galteri
Deloeni: ex capite Geneseos quarto deprompta_, etc. It is bound in white
leather, and ornamented with the royal coat-of-arms in the centre, flanked
by the letters "E. R.," and surrounded by a scattered arrangement of
double roses, daisies, cornucopiæ, and stars, all enclosed in a small
decorated border. It is probably by Berthelet, and is in excellent
condition. In the British Museum there are instances of bindings in white
leather made for Henry VIII. and for Mary, but there is no instance of one
made for Edward VI., so that this Windsor binding is of considerable
interest apart from its beauty.
A copy of Herodotus' and Thucydides' works, bound together in one cover,
belonged most likely to Edward VI. It is part of the old royal library,
and is bound in brown calf, with a broad outer border of Italian character
enclosing the royal coat-of-arms, crowned, within a flamed circle. The
flamed circle first occurs, as may have been noted, on the volumes bound
for Edward when Prince of Wales, and it is afterwards used on several of
his later volumes, and also on many that were bound for Queen Mary. What
the meaning of this flamed circle is I have not been able to conjecture,
it may possibly only be intended for ornament. Berthelet, doubtless, liked
to use circles or parts of circles on his bindings, and in this taste he
was following the lead of much more ancient English binders, as the circle
is characteristic of the splendid blind stamped English work of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Thomas Berthelet died, according to an entry in the Stationers' Company
Register, in 1556. So that it is just possible he bound books for Queen
Mary. But I think that Berthelet was quickly copied, and it is very easy
to copy the style or even the actual stamps of any binder; and if the
binding of Cardinal Bembo's _History of Venice_ be taken as a test example
of Berthelet's best work, which I think it fairly may be, it will be seen
that although Mary's bindings have some points of resemblance there are
also many wide differences. Berthelet avowedly acknowledged the beauty of
Italian originals, but I do not find that he actually copied any one of
them, and he, moreover, very soon left them behind. There is a certain
recrudescence of this Italian manner distinctly apparent in many of the
books bound for Queen Mary, and I imagine this to be the work, not of
Berthelet himself, but of one of his imitators or successors, or perhaps
one of his own workmen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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