An Essay in the History of Gold-Tooled
Bindings by Herbert P. Horne
London 1894
dore, et regie sur tranche 42 livres des Statuts et Ordonnances de l'ordre, reliez et couverts de
maroquin orenge du Levant, enrichis d'un coste des armoires de Sa Majeste pleines dorees, de
l'autre de France et de Pologne, et aux quatre coins de chiffres, et Ie reste de flammes, avec
leur fermoirs de ruban orenge et bleu, suivant l'ordonnance de M. Ie chancelier du 26 et
quittance du 27 decembre 1579, cy XLVII escus et demi' [Bibl. Nat, MS. Clairambault, 1231, fol.
91 et 108.].
One of these books, retaining the binding of
Nicolas Eve, is preserved in the British Museum [C. 29. k. 3.], and another is in the Bibliotheque
Nationale [vide Gruel, s.n.]. In the centre of the upper board are the arms of France impaling
those of Poland; on the lower, are the arms of France alone. In each comer of the boards is the
crowned cypher of Henri III., and Louise de Lorraine, being an H interlaced with two A.: the
emblem of the Holy Spirit is repeated four times about the royal arms: and the remaining field of
the boards is powdered with a 'semis' of fleurs-de-lys and tongues of flame. In both copies, the
orange morocco has become changed and darkened with time. The British Museum also
possesses two other books bound for Henri III., tooled in a very similar manner, which may with
certainty be attributed to the binder of the Statutes of the , Ordre du Sainct Esprit.' The smaller
volume, which is figured in Plate VII., is a Horace, printed at Venice, in 1581 [Co 48. d. 5.]: the
larger a copy of Paulus Aemilius' Histoire des Faicts des Roys, Princes, Seigneurs, et Peuple de
France, Paris, 1581 [G. 6455.].
These bindings, however, are neither those which are commonly associated with the name of
Henri III., nor those, popularly attributed to Nicolas Eve. The books of this king, to which I allude,
are bound after a common model. In them, the field of the boards is divided by a floriated fillet of
three lines, into variously shaped compartments, which are left unornamented, except by a
central stamp, representing the Crucifixion. The back of the book is broken by a similar fillet: the
title is tooled at the head; the legend, SPES MEA DEVS, at the tail end; the arms of France in the
centre; and in the intermediate spaces are placed a skull and a fleur-de-Iys. Henri III. caused his
books to be bound with these lugubrious symbols, without regard to their contents; much in the
same way as his public professions of morality were made, without any apparent reference to
his private life. The design of these bindings is as little pleasing as their sentiment; the forms of
the compartments being ill-contrived in themselves, and without relation to one another. A good
example of such a binding may be seen on a copy of the Devotes Contemplations, of Luis de
Granada, Paris, 1583, in the British Museum [C. 47. a.], which, also, possesses another very
large, but very mutilated, specimen of the same kind.