9). The
backs, moreover, are only rounded very slightly, if at all.
This flatness has been attained on the earlier books either by sewing on
flat bands, thin strips of leather or vellum (Fig. 10), or by flattening
the usual hempen bands as much as they will bear by the hammer, and
afterwards filling up the intermediate spaces with padding of some
suitable material, linen or thin leather.
In several instances the difficulty of flattening the bands has been
solved, in sixteenth-and seventeenth-century embroidered books, in a way
which cannot be too strongly condemned from a constructive point of
view, although it has served its immediate purpose admirably.
A small trench has been cut with a sharp knife for each band, deep
enough to sink it to the general level of the inner edges of the
sections (Fig. 11).
[Illustration: FIG. 9. Back of book sewn on raised bands.]
[Illustration: FIG. 10. Band of flat vellum sometimes found on
old books with flat backs.]
[Illustration: FIG. 11. Typical appearance of a book, before it
is sewn, with small trenches cut in the back in which the bands are to
be laid; a bad method, but often used to produce a flat back.]
This cutting of the back to make room for the bands was afterwards more
easily effected by means of a saw--as it is done now--and in the
eighteenth century was especially used by the French binder Derome le
Jeune, who is usually made responsible for its invention.
Pages:
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46