ARTE DELLE CARTE
Hand made books using centuries old tecniques of bookbinding and the best
italian paper.Examples of the kinds of books we make include: books for sketching,
blank, with lined paper, with amalfi paper...
Welcome to Arte delle Carte Bookbinding Florence Store
THE BOOKBINDING ( little history of bookbinding extract of Bolzacchi)
The book is an object with a history of its own, based not only on its contents,
but in its proper aspect, graphia, pictures, materials and ornaments.
The first form of bookbinding was a rolled perchment or papir, trasformed
by the Copts in the binded book as we presently know codex.
Archeological remains from Egypt allow to reconstruct the following ratios
of existing rolls and CODICI, changing through the centuries (Roberts, 1954):
II century: 465 rolls - 2 codici
III century: 297 rolls - 60 codici
IV century: 25 rolls - 71 codici
Early in those days, writing in codex instead of rolls was not so popular,
as testifies S. Agustin in his letter number 171 to S. Jerolamous while apologizing
for writing in the codice- instead of the roll-form.
This attitude was nevertheless to change more or less quickly, if one considers
that the iconography of S. Jerolamous depicts a saint surrounded by codici.
It is difficult to understand why the codici were preferred to the rolls by
the first christians. Saint Paul asks his disciple for his "note-book"
(latin term "membranae": 2Tim 4, 13), testifing that the bookbinding
of perchment was probably used by the Romans.
The art of bookbinding borns with the advent of fascicules, sets of leaflets
tied by means of threads.
The oldest known bookbinding techniques were executed by copt craftmans, the
old cristians that long influenced this art. The Copt Museum in Cairo helds
one of the oldest bindings, a IV century manuscript formed by 19 fascicules
of two papir leaflets each and with a brown leather binding, in a perfect
state of preservation (Regemorter, 1954).
Each fascicule of the greek-bizantine codici were incised in order to let
the tread pass through. This operation was made possible by the use of a tool
called the "greca", holding the fascicules together tight, a technique
called "grecaggio".
THE "NERVI" (SPINE)
The presence of nervi on the dorso of the bookbinding dates back to the carolingian
period (VIII - IX century).
The binding was executed without looms and the axes were of the same breadth
of the fascicules, but a novelty was introduced in the form of an external
support around which fastening the binding thread: the spine type of binding
is used for the first time.
This is the first important revolution in the art of bookbinding, for nervi
are supports that streinghten the structure of the book dorso, allowing for
the introduction of heavy ornaments on the side of the book, typical of the
Middle Ages.
Another important step in our history of bookbinding is the introduction of
the "Pergamena floscia" technique, invented in Siena, Tuscany, Italy
around the year 1000. "Pergamena floscia" stand for "..............
perchment" and refers to the complete absence of glue in the binding.
Following the birth of paper factories the production of books sharply increases
and the research of fast methods of bookbinding is imposed to craftsmans.
The use of looms becomes widespread, allowing to separate the phases of binding
of the book and to subdivide mansions within the "scriptoria" (book
factories). Before this introduction, the axis of the book had to be built
first and the fascicules tied around it in a second instance. The nervi, first
made of canapa, were then substituted by rolled leather stripes .
To our customers:
We are starting now our on line sell they are a little pieces of all our productions
step by step we want to offer you more!
Thanks for your pacience and yours requests.
BOOKBINDING (From Wikipedia)
The craft of bookbinding originated in India, where religious sutra were copied onto palm leaves (cut into two, lengthwise) with a metal stylus. The leaf was then dried and rubbed with ink, which would form a stain in the wound. The finished leaves were given numbers, and two long twines were threaded through each end through wooden boards. When closed, the excess twine would be wrapped around the boards to protect the leaves of the book. Buddhist monks took the idea through modern Persia, Afghanistan, and Iran, to China in the first century BC.
Western writers at this time wrote longer texts as scrolls, and these were stored in shelving with small cubbyholes, similar to a modern winerack. The word volume, from the Latin word volvere ("to roll"), comes from these scrolls. Court records and notes were written on tree bark and leaves, while important documents were written on papyrus. The modern English word book comes from the Proto-Germanic *bokiz, referring to the beechwood on which early written works were recorded.
The book was not needed in ancient times, as many early Greek texts—scrolls—were thirty pages long, which fits into the hand. Roman works were often longer, running to hundreds of pages. The Greeks used to comically call their books tome, meaning "to cut". The Egyptian Book of the Dead was a massive 200 pages long but was never meant to be read by the living. Torahs, editions of the Jewish holy book, were also held in special holders when read.
Scrolls can be rolled in one of two ways. The first method is to wrap the scroll around a single core, similar to a modern roll of paper towels. While simple to construct, a single core scroll has a major disadvantage: in order to read text at the end of the scroll, the entire scroll must be unwound. This is partially overcome in the second method, which is to wrap the scroll around two cores, as in a Torah. With a double scroll, the text can be accessed from both beginning and end, and the portions of the scroll not being read can remain wound. This still leaves the scroll a sequential-access medium: to reach a given page, one generally has to unroll and re-roll many other pages.
The first solution invented to overcome this problem was a set of simple wooden boards sewn together, around the 1st century A.D. Romans called this simple book a codex—the Latin for the trunk of a tree. However, it was the early Coptic Christians of Egypt who made the first breakthrough. They discovered that by folding sheets of vellum or parchment in half and sewing them through the fold, they could produce a book that could be written on both sides. Wooden boards held it together, and the whole book was slipped into a goatskin leather bag to be carried.
Codices were a significant improvement over papyrus or vellum scrolls in that they were easier to handle. But despite allowing writing on both sides of the leaves, they were still foliated—numbered on the leaves, like the Indian books. The idea spread quickly through the early churches, and we get the word Bible from the town where the Byzantium monks established their first scriptorium, Byblos, in modern Lebanon. The idea of numbering each side of the page—Latin pagina, "to fasten"—appeared when the text of the individual testaments of the bible were combined and text had to be searched through more quickly. This book format became the preferred way of preserving manuscript or printed material.
Early and medieval codices were bound with flat spines, and it was not until the 15th century that books began to have the rounded spines associated with hardcovers today[2]. Because the vellum of early books would react to humidity by swelling, causing the book to take on a characteristic wedge shape, the wooden covers of medieval books were often secured with straps or clasps. These straps, along with metal bosses on the book's covers to keep it raised off the surface that it rests on, are collectively known as furniture.
Thus, Western books from the 5th century onwards were bound between hard covers, with pages made from parchment folded and sewn onto strong cords or ligaments that were attached to wooden boards and covered with leather. Since early books were exclusively handwritten on handmade materials, sizes and styles varied considerably, and each book was a unique creation or a copy of it.
The Arabs revolutionised the book's production and its binding. They were
the first to produce paper books after they learnt paper industry from the
Chinese in 8th century[3]. Particular skills were developed for script writing
(calligraphy), miniature and bookbinding. The people who worked in making
books were called "Warraqin" or paper professionals. The Arabs made
books lighter—sewn with silk and bound with leather covered paste boards,
they had a flap that wrapped the book up when not in use. As paper was less
reactive to humidity, the heavy boards were not needed. The production of
books became a real industry and cities like Marrakech in Morocco, had a street
named "Kutubiyyin" or book sellers which contained more than 100
bookshops in the 12th century[4]. In the words of Don Baker: "The world
of Islam has produced some of the most beautiful books ever created. The need
to write down the Revelations which the Prophet Muhammad, may peace be upon
him, received, fostered the desire to beautify the object which conveyed these
words and initiated this ancient craft. Nowhere else, except perhaps in China,
has calligraphy been held in such high esteem. Splendid illumination was added
with gold and vibrant colours, and the whole book contained and protected
by beautiful bookbindings"
The binding of a Chinese bamboo book.
With the arrival (from the East) of rag paper manufacturing in Europe in the late Middle Ages and the use of the printing press beginning in the mid-15th century, bookbinding began to standardize somewhat, but page sizes still varied considerably.
With printing, the books became more accessible and were stored on their side on long shelves for the first time. Clasps were removed, and titles were added to the spine. The reduced cost of books facilitated cheap lightweight Bibles, made from tissue-thin oxford paper, with floppy covers, that resembled the early Arabic Korans, enabling missionaries to take portable books with them around the world, and modern wood glues enabled paperback covers to be added to simple glue bindings.
Arte delle Carte CRAFTSMAN
Artisan Workshop Artistic bookbinding of Florence Italy
Genuine leather items with our marbled paper photo album
book-binding book binding fine bindings bindings binding
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