From the end of the fifteenth century, although bookbinding was always considered as an adjunct to the bookseller’s shop, certain amateurs who had a taste for art required richer and more _recherché_ exteriors for their books. Italy set us the example of beautiful bindings in morocco, stamped and gilt; imitated, however, from those of the Koran and other Arabian manuscripts, which Venetian navigators frequently brought back with them from the East. The expedition of Charles VIII. and the wars of Louis XII. introduced into France not only Italian bindings, but Italian binders also. Without renouncing, however, at least for the _livres d’heures_, the bindings ornamented with goldsmith’s work and gems, France had very soon binders of her own, surpassing those who had been to them as initiators or masters. Jean Grollier, of Lyons, loved books too much not to wish to give them an exterior ornamentation worthy of the wealth of knowledge they contained. Treasurer of War, and Intendant of the Milanese before the battle of Pavia, he had begun to create a library, which he subsequently transported into France, and did not cease to enlarge and to enrich till his death, which happened in 1565. His books were bound in morocco from the Levant, with such care and taste that, under the supervision of this exacting amateur, bookbinding seemed to have already attained perfection. [Illustration: Fig. 384.--Bookbinders’ Work-room, drawn and engraved in the Sixteenth Century, by J. Amman.] Princes and ladies of the court prided themselves on their love of books and the desire to acquire them; they founded libraries, and encouraged the works and inventions of good bookbinders who produced masterpieces of patience and ability in decorating the covers of books, either with enamelled paintings, or with mosaics made of different pieces inlaid, or with plain gildings stamped on the surface with small irons. It would be impossible to enumerate the splendid bindings in all styles that the French bookbinders of the sixteenth century have left us, and which have never been surpassed since. The painter, the engraver, and even the goldsmith, co-operated with the bookbinder in his art, by furnishing him with designs for ornaments. We now see reappearing some plates obtained from hot or cold dies, representing various subjects, and the designs from which they were taken, reproduced from those that had been in fashion towards the beginning of the sixteenth century, were often drawn by distinguished artists, such as Jean Cousin, Stephen de Laulne, &c. [Illustration: Fig. 385.--Mark of William Eustace (1512), Bookseller and Binder, Paris.]