Certain volumes, however, were treated with particular honour, either at the expense of a wealthy and book-loving owner, or for the purpose of presentation to some great personage, and for these sumptuous bindings the materials employed were various and costly. A Latin psalter which was written for Melissenda, wife of Fulk, Count of Anjou and King of Jerusalem, has a very wonderful French binding. The covers are of wood, and each bears a series of delicate ivory carvings of Byzantine work. The upper cover shows incidents in the life of David, and symbolical figures, and the lower cover scenes representing the works of Mercy, with figures of birds and animals. Rubies and turquoises dotted here and there help to beautify the ivory. This book is in the British Museum. [Illustration: UPPER COVER OF MELISSENDA'S PSALTER (_reduced_).] Another specimen in the same collection may be taken as an example of the use of enamel as a decoration for bindings. This is a Latin manuscript of the Gospels of SS. Luke and John, which is enclosed in wooden boards bound in red leather. In the upper cover is a sunk panel of Limoges enamel on copper gilt, representing Christ in glory. The work is of the thirteenth century. These enamelled bindings were often additionally decorated with gold and jewels. A curious little modification of the ordinary leather binding was sometimes made in the case of small devotional works. The leather of the back and sides was continued at the bottom in a long tapering slip, at the end of which was a kind of button, so that the book might be fastened to the dress or girdle. Slender chains were often used for the same purpose. About the time of the invention of printing, leather bindings began to be decorated with gold tooling. Tooling is the name given to the designs impressed upon the leather with various small dies so manipulated as to make a connected pattern. When the impressions are gilded the dull leather is brightened and beautified in proportion to the skill and taste expended by the workman. The art of gold tooling is believed to have originated in the East, and to have been brought to Italy by Venetian traders, or, as it has also been suggested, through the manuscripts which were dispersed at the fall of Constantinople. In any case, it was in Italy that it was first adopted and brought to perfection, and other European countries learned the art from Italian craftsmen. Chief among the early Italian gilt bindings are those made of the finest leathers and inscribed THO. MAIOLI ET AMICORVM. Nothing whatever is known of Thomasso Maioli, except that he had a large library and spared no expense in clothing his books in bibliopegic purple and fine linen.