Decorated Papers

bindings of the Law Library of the University of Modena, Italy

Below is the source of the endpaper above.¹

A series of images of decorated papers from bindings of the Law Library of the University of Modena, Italy.²

Decorated Book Papers: a Beginner’s Guide by Simon Beattie.

This is a brief outline of the kinds of decorated papers you might come across when looking at books from the hand-press period.³ Here is the introduction on “Marbling Paper.”

The technique of marbling paper was developed in Asia (the oldest examples, from Japan, have been dated to the 12th century) before travelling west, to Persia, Turkey, and Europe. The decoration is achieved not directly onto the sheet of paper itself, but on a liquid called the marbling ‘size’ (‘a glutinous or viscid wash applied to paper, parchment, etc., to provide a suitable ground for gilding, painting, or other work’, OED).  Marbling paints are then sprinkled onto the size, in a flat tray, where they can either be left to float, or be manipulated with tools such as needles or combs to produce the decoration desired; the paper is then laid onto the size and the pattern thus transferred onto the paper. ⁴

1. Mich. Henr. Gribneri ICti Principia processus iudiciarii in vsus priuatos auditorum conscripta publici iuris fecit Io. Christoph. Franck. IVD qui differentias iuris Magdeburgici adiecit. He accessed Dissertatio epistolica de litium ambagibus recidendis et index locupletissimus. - Editio quinta eademque multis accessionibus aucta emendata et ad ord. proc. Sax. recogn. accommodata - Ienae: apud viduam B. Mayeri, 1733.

2. Decorated papers of the University Law Library.

3. Simon Beattie (2018). Decorated Book Papers: a Beginner’s Guide. The New Antiquarian: The Blog of the Antiquarian Booksellers of America.

4. Ibid.