There
are several spangles scattered about in the spaces on the linen, and the
edge is bound with green silk and gold. On the book itself to which this
cover belongs there is a good deal of the same needle-point work,
probably executed by the same hand; but the cover is a finer piece
altogether than the book,--in fact it is the finest example of such work
I have ever seen.
[Illustration: 2--Embroidered Cover for New Testament. London, 1640.]
Abroad there have been made at various times embroidered bindings for
books, but in no country except England has there been any regular
production of them. I have come across a few cases in England of
foreign work, the most important of which I will shortly describe. In
the British Museum is an interesting specimen bound in red satin, and
embroidered with the arms of Felice Peretti, Cardinal de Montalt, who
was afterwards Pope Sixtus V.; the coat-of-arms has a little
coloured silk upon it, but the border and the cardinal's hat with
tassels are all outlined in gold cord. The work is of an elementary
character. The book itself is a beautiful illuminated vellum copy of
Fichet's _Rhetoric_, printed in Paris in 1471, and presented to the then
Pope, Sixtus IV. In the same collection are a few more instances of
Italian embroidered bindings, always heraldic in their main
designs, the workmanship not being of any particular excellence or
character.
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