Humanists and Bookbinders: The Origins and Diffusion of Humanistic Bookbinding, 1459-1559

When it was first published in 1990, this book was an important study (the first for over sixty years) of north Italian and Parisian bindings by a distinguished authority who has elegantly considered the twin claims of ornament and patronage. The decorative possibilities of book binding were transformed during the third quarter of the fifteenth century through the work of antiquaries and scribes centred in Padua. Gilt-tooled elements taken from Islamic bookbindings and metal work, antique m...