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Green paint and the imperial eagle: a surprising book binding in the Dorchester Library
An unusual-looking book in the RCP’s Dorcheser library has an intriguing green binding from 16th century Germany.
Katie Birkwood
Of the making of books
Photography by John Chase
‘Of the making of books’
Ecclesiastes 12:12
The skilled craft of book printing has developed many different forms around the world. In Europe, the German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg combined several pre-existing techniques into a new process and business model in the 1450s. After his first books printed with movable metal type appeared, the technology rapidly spread across the continent.
For a published book to reach the doctors’ library, it will have passed through several key processes. Text and illustrations will have been copied from an existing manuscript work, an earlier printed book or created from scratch. A willing publisher will have invested in the resources (metal type, paper, ink and labour) needed to produce the book, as well as securing the services of a printing house with skilled workers.
Once printed, the individual sheets of paper would need to be held together somehow; protective bindings range from the cheapest of paper to the most lavishly decorated leather, chosen to suit the budget and taste of the purchaser. Finally, established distribution networks were essential for transporting and selling the published books.
Today, the doctors’ library represents all types of book production, quality and design. The beauty and ingenuity of many examples remind us of the care and value invested in them at every stage of their creation.
The printer’s workshop
Printer’s device of Josse Badius, also known as Ascensianus, (1462–1535) in De temperamentis libri tres [Three books on the temperaments]
Galen, artist and woodcutter unknown, published Paris, 1528
CN14273
This illustration was used as the logo of a Paris printing shop run from 1503–1535. It depicts a wooden screw press anchored to the floor and ceiling. The muscled pressman pulls on the central handle to press a sheet of paper against the inked formes of type. Skilled pressmen could make up to 250 pulls an hour.
Behind the pressman, another worker stands ready to ink the forme of type between each pull, using two leather balls smeared with a sticky oil-based ink. On the right-hand side, a compositor sits in the light of the window assembling type sorts into a composing stick, held in his left hand.
Donated by Dyce Duckworth FRCP (1840–1928)
Photographer: Scott Maloney / Cambridge University Library
Making and setting letterpress type
Punch and matrix for a floral decoration in the Kelmscott Troy font, late 19th century
Type sorts of Ehrhardt Roman font (12 point), composing stick, initial letter A, 20th century
Type mould and cast type with break attached, 20th century
Lent by the Syndics of Cambridge University Library and the Syndics of Cambridge University Press & Assessment
Printing using the method of movable metal type – where individual characters are arranged to form words on pages – requires the production of hundreds of identical versions of each letter of the alphabet as well as numbers and symbols.
The process starts with engraving an example form of each letter, in reverse, into a piece of steel called a ‘punch’. That punch is then hammered into a piece of softer copper, a ‘matrix’, to produce a negative impression of the letter. The matrix can be reused over and over as the mould for individual pieces of type, known as ‘sorts’.
The copper matrix for each letter, number or symbol in a typeface is fitted into an adjustable sprung-loaded mould. The type caster pours molten type metal – a quick-cooling alloy of tin, antimony and lead – into the mould, gives it a quick shake to distribute the metal evenly, and then releases the piece of type and its long tail, called a ‘break’, from the mould.
After the breaks have been snapped off all the sorts and the ends filed smooth, the type is distributed into a typecase with one compartment for each letter, ready to be used. To set type ready for printing, the compositor picks each letter or symbol out of the typecase in turn and places it in a composing stick. The compositor works from the top to the bottom of a page, arranging the sorts upside down and back-to-front, from left-to-right in the composing stick.
Forme of type setting an excerpt from the rules of the Museaum Harveianum (1660) and a woodcut of ‘Death and the printers’ from La Grande Danse Macabre, published Lyon, 1499–1500
Typeset in Ehrhardt Roman (12 point) by David Macfarlane, 2025
The individual lines of type set in the composing stick are assembled – along with any necessary woodblocks for illustrations – into a whole-page layout and fixed tightly into a ‘forme’. Type sorts used for the text and woodblock used for decorative illustrations are all produced to precisely the same height – 23.3mm – so that the pages will print evenly.
Lent by the Syndics of Cambridge University Library
Printing music
Prattica di musica utile et necessaria [The useful and necessary practice of music]
Lodovico Zacconi, published Venice, 1596
CN8047
Movable metal type was also used to print musical notation. The music in this book was printed using the single impression method: the five-line stave and musical notes were printed all at once. Type was cast for each possible note length sitting at every possible location on the stave, requiring a large number of different designs.
These pages show part of the Kyrie (a prayer) from Giovanni Palestrina’s ‘Missa L’homme armé’ for five voices, which is one of the musical examples analysed in the text of the book.
Donated by Grace Pierrepont (1635–1703)
Photography by John Chase
Colours of the rainbow
Grammaire turque, ou, Methode courte et facile pour apprendre la langue turque [Turkish grammar, or a short and simple method for learning the Turkish language]
Jean Baptiste Holdermann, published Istanbul, 1730
CN12304
This Turkish grammar book is astonishingly colourful. It has been printed on sheets of pink, orange, yellow, green, purple and undyed paper. We do not know why this copy received this special treatment – perhaps it was a gift to a patron or supporter of the publisher or author. No other similar copies of this book are known.
Donated by Roy Dobbin FRCP (1873–1939)
Photography by John Chase
Seeing inside the binding
Commentaria in librum Aphorismorum Hippocratis [Commentary on Hippocrates’ book of aphorisms]
Cristóbal de Vega, published Venice, 1571
CN54612
This damaged book binding reveals what is usually hidden inside the spine of a book. Printed sheets are folded once, twice or more into gatherings. Those gatherings of paper are individually sewn to supports made of cord, leather or cotton ribbon secured into wooden or card boards at the front and back of the book. The spine was then often covered with a lining material – such as reused parchment or paper – before the whole book would be covered in leather, parchment or cloth.
The gatherings of this book are sewn onto tawed leather supports, the spine lined with fragments of reused 13th-century manuscript and the book covered in parchment.
Donated by the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV, February 2013
Photography by John Chase and Mike Fear
Hidden medieval fragments
Manuscript fragment of a commentary on the Gospel according to St Luke, later 13th century
MS777/40
Manuscript fragments of a pocket Breviary with musical notation, 13th century
MS777/91
These three fragments of medieval manuscript were recovered from books in the doctors’ library when their bindings were repaired or replaced in the middle of the 20th century. When the books were bound in the 16th century, the manuscripts were cut down to size to line the spines and covers of books in different ways. Some had slots cut into them to accommodate the book’s sewing structure.
Removed from books donated by Grace Pierrepont (1635–1703)
Photography by John Chase
Decorating book bindings
Grammaire turque, ou, Methode courte et facile pour apprendre la langue turque [Turkish grammar, or a short and simple method for learning the Turkish language]
Jean Baptiste Holdermann, published Istanbul, 1730
CN12303
This book is bound sumptuously in red morocco (textured goatskin) leather decorated with gold tooling. Bindings in this style were popular with wealthy owners in the 18th century.
Donated by Roy Dobbin FRCP (1873–1939)
Ornamental book binding stamps and rolls, 20th century
Leather book bindings were commonly decorated using tools such as these. Rolls repeat a pattern along the length and breadth of a cover, and stamps are used individually or arranged into patterns. The brass tools were heated over a fire and then firmly impressed into the leather surface, sometimes with the addition of gold or silver leaf for a luxurious decorative effect.
Lent courtesy of Lambeth Palace Library
Photography by John Chase
Different ways of binding books
Le franc et veritable discours au Roy sur le retablissement qui luy est demande pour les Jesuites [The frank and truthful speech to the King about the restoration of the Jesuits that has been asked of him]
Antoine Arnauld, published Paris, 1602
CN10634
Most of the books in the doctors’ library today are in leather or cloth bindings. When they were first published, many of them would have been bought and read in these simple blue paper covers. These relatively flimsy covers rarely survive – this 17th-century example is particularly unusual.
Donated by Grace Pierrepont (1635–1703)
Rosa gallica omnibus sanitatem affectantibus utilis et necessaria [The French rose useful and necessary to all who are seeking health]
Symphorien Champier, published Paris, 1514
CN13357
This compact volume is bound in a typically robust early 16th-century binding of blind tooled (decorated with impressed designs without the use of gold leaf) leather over wooden boards, with metal clasps to hold the book shut.
Bequeathed by David Lloyd Roberts FRCP (1835–1920)
An essay on warm, cold and vapour bathing, with practical observations on sea bathing
Arthur Clarke, published London, 1820, fifth edition
CN18625
This style of leather decoration is known as ‘tree calf’ because of the branch-like structure created on the surface of the book. The effect is created by running a combination of chemicals across the leather’s surface to permanently discolour it.
Donated by Leonard Llewelyn Bulkeley Williams (1861–1939)
The philosophy of health: or, An exposition of the physiological and sanitary conditions conducive to human longevity and happiness
Southwood Smith, published London, 1847
CN16598
Every surface of this book is covered in the decorative effect of marbling. Many different styles of marbling were created; this pattern is known as ‘nonpareil’ meaning ‘without equal’ in French.
Marbled paper is made by creating coloured patterns on the surface of water, or a thick goo called ‘size’, using ink droppers, combs and other implements. Those patterns are then carefully transferred to the surface of a sheet of paper laid on top of the water or size.
Donated by C. Peyton Baly on behalf of the National Council for Maternity and Child Welfare, 5 January 1939