Introduction

Over the past thirty years, there has been an increased interest in historical bookbinding forms focused on the bare necessities of protection and structural cohesion, commonplace alternatives to the luxurious executions and aesthetic masterpieces that have often been the subjects of binding histories. David Pearson, in his history of English binding styles, categorized these often ignored bindings as 'cheap and temporary', and both labels are generally accurate. ¹    Until recently, the most under-represented styles in any history of the craft were those that were offered at a cheaper price than the familiar full-leather options, and those which were often created to serve a temporary purpose, designed to be easily replaced. Cheap, of course, can also reflect on the objects worth, intimating that the styles are paltry as well, and it seems that Pearson does have this connotation in mind.

"The economic models and production methods of today's book trade are very different from those of the handpress age, but there is a fundamental similarity in that two hundred years from now, the cheaper books of today are likely to have survived less well than the more expensive ones."

On the surface, this assumption seems valid. Even of we account for the tendency to collect (and therefore protect) more elaborate, expensive bindings, it seems logical that fewer examples of ephemeral styles have been handed down to us do to their structural weaknesses.

It was surprising, therefore, when Christopher Clarkson, a young book conservator helping to assess the damage done by the Florence flood to the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze in 1966, noted that limp vellum bindings, text blocks laced into folded vellum covers, had not only survived the flood with more success than traditional leather-over-boards structures, but that even before the disaster they seemed to have been better protecting their text blocks. Clarkson began studying the Renaissance models that had survived so well and developed his own limp vellum structure, which he began using to rebind books damaged by the food. When Clarkson later gave a talk on limp vellum bindings in Venice in 1975, a lecture that was later published as a small illustrated volume, ²    he questioned the accepted understanding of the style as a cheap an ephemeral design. He praised the structure's "simplicity of construction, light weight, mechanical yielding qualities, lack of distortion in varying atmospheres and the durability of its components". ³    Clarkson's study of the structure, and his claims for it as a conservation treatment (claims that have met resistance), have significantly increased interest in the limp vellum form for the past few decades.

Loosely, we might describe the limp vellum binding as any in which a codex text block is covered in unsupported vellum. This would include both simple stab-sewn wrappers of vellum (such as the 13th century Modus poenitendi) and very simple early structures in which a sewn quire of pages is tacketed to a limp cover of vellum. The second natural evolution of the form was to attach the vellum wrapper as the textblock was being sewn. This gave rise to link-stitch and long-stitch structures with the sewing of the textblock actually extending out onto the spine of the cover itself. In general, however, when one speaks of a limp vellum binding, one is usually referring to the later development of sewing the textblock onto thongs and then lacing these thongs into the vellum wrapper at the joint. This structure, which almost always has wide turn-ins, structural endbands laced into the boards, and very little or no adhesive, is the focus of the current exhibit.

The relative frequency of such limp vellum bindings over time is hard to determine. In 1461, the Dominican Convent in Nuremberg had a library of 352 volumes, of which nine percent (32 bindings) were limp vellum. ⁴    The same convent, however, also cataloged the books privately owned by its nuns, a total of 113 volumes, of which 50 were in limp vellum, roughly 44 percent. This is indicative of the cheap cost of the technique as compared to more laborious bindings. Still, even the illustrious collection of Charles V and Charles the VI (1364-1422) had 116 of their 1239 volumes described as couverte de parchemin or d'un pel de parchemin. In the 16^th century, however, the limp vellum binding increased in frequency. Nicholas Pickwoad found, in a survey of the Ramey Collection, a 16^th century french private library, that over 50 percent of the bindings were limp vellum. ⁵    The increase in limp vellum bindings in the 16th century is at least partially due to the increase in small octavo pocket editions printed by scholar-publishers such as Aldus Manutius. As the current exhibit illustrates, the 16th century fad for limp vellum gave rise to a variety of decorative techniques used to embellish the bindings, some of which put into question the thought of limp vellum as a temporary or cheap style.

Both Clarkson and Bernard Middleton have noted that by the 17^th century, the technique was already in decline, and limp vellum is not nearly as prevalent as it was in the Renaissance. ⁶    It wasn't until the late 19th century that a resurgence in the technique was seen. Private Press binders, most notably T. J. Cobden-Sanderson working for the Kelmscott and Doves presses, began to bring back the form as a general return to the Venetian standards that they looked to in forming their aesthetic. This fine-binding adaptation of limp vellum can still be seen today in the work of some contemporary design binders. Nearly a hundred years later, the limp vellum found favor again, this time with those conservators and binders who were rallied by the endorsements of Christopher Clarkson. Several well-known adaptations of the form became popular, attempts to further refine the model that Clarkson had popularized, most notably those designed by Pamela Barrios and Robert Espinoza. ⁷   

The current exhibit aims to illustrate some of these changing patterns in the use of the limp vellum binding while hopefully managing to convey its utilitarian logic, its often simple, understated aesthetic, and some of its little-appreciated allure, which has enticed binders for at least the past six hundred years.      - Douglas Rice