Rosengarten.] •'•V * [Jan. 4, 



there were books of 1513 and 1526 and 1529 and 1540 so bound and 

 marked, the hxst a Martial bound for Charles V, by a bookbinder of 

 Amsterdam, with the arms of that city and his own name in full, as well 

 as the arms and motto of the great Emperor. In the good old times every 

 publisher was his own printer and bookbinder, for in the fifteenth and 

 sixteenth centuries no books were sold unbound. The bookbinders went 

 from city to city in search of employment from the printers and pub- 

 lishers, and only in the monasteries were there monks who were em- 

 ployed as authors, illuminators and binders. Every printer and publisher 

 had his own device and legend, which was reproduced on the binding as 

 well as on the title-page. The Elzevirs, the Plantins, the great printers 

 of Amsterdam and Antwerp and Lyons, as well as those of Paris, thus 

 made the binding an integral and important part of their books, and the 

 books with the cypher of Francis I, and the arms of Paul V, the Gruliers 

 and the Miiiolis, all reveal the owner and the binder. 



There was a fine folio Erasmus, printed in Venice in 1508, annotated 

 throughout by Grolier in his own handwriting, with a drawing by him of 

 a medal referred to in the text, and with his familiar legend, "Jo. Grolieriz 

 Lugdunen et amicorum," written on the last page by the owner. There 

 was a Venice Homer of 1539 bearing the name of an amateur binder of 

 great merit, but hitherto unknown. There were bindings for Christian 

 VII of Denmark, and for Louis XIII, as well as those for famous col- 

 lectors of less rank, bearing the names of the binders, and M. Gruel ex- 

 hibited a bound copy of the rules of the bookbinders of Paris, 1750, with the 

 name of the binder, the date of his birth, of his marriage, of his apprentice- 

 ship and of his becoming a master workman, while the great Padeloup con- 

 tented himself with putting his name modestly under the title. Among the 

 curious bindings were those of pretended bixjks, really vessels for liquor. 

 On one Franklin's portrait is preserved in a medallion, another has 

 the title "L'Esprit de Rousseau," and as such false books were said 

 to be for the use of country clergymen, there was a special joke in making 

 Franklin and Rousseau, the enemies of the church, contribute to the com- 

 fort of its servants. Daring the French Revolution the nobles bad their 

 books bound with republican devices concealing their arms. The Restora- 

 tion had a wealth of great bookbinders, and their successors of our own 

 day, no matter how strong their rivalry, were close neighbors in the cases 

 in which some of their finest examples were gathered at this Exposition du 

 Livre. There was a wealth of curious historical material, the charters of 

 the bookbinders' associations or guilds of the fourteenth, fifteenth and six- 

 teenth centuries, their accounts, inventories, tools, etc., and a complete 

 library of books on bookbinding, now quite a collection in numbers. 



The Exposition du Livre had its historical side. Great rooms were full of 

 material of the most precious kind ; the whole story of French caricatures 

 was told on its walls ; French art in every form of application to books 

 and printing of every kind vvas splendidly exhibited, and besides there 

 was a capital exhibition of every industry related to printing — inks, paper, 



