Cambridge Bookbindings : Small format Garret Godfrey binding, ca.1535

Tittelmans, Franciscus 1502-1537

Cambridge Bookbindings

<p style='text-align: justify;'><p>A small-format binding from Garret Godfrey’s workshop which exemplifies a number of changes which began to appear in Cambridge binding during the second quarter of the sixteenth century. Both the Godfrey and Spierinck binderies saw new rolls appear ca.1530, and layout patterns evolved. Pasteboard increasingly came to replace wood (initially for smaller format books), and clasps were replaced with cloth ties across the fore edges. As the century progressed, darker brown calfskin (when compared with what was typical in the early decades of the century) was increasingly used. The small octagonal stamp showing a lion began to be used by Godfrey’s workshop in the 1510s.</p><p>Pasteboards covered with dark brown calfskin, blind-tooled including roll Oldham DI.h(3). Fragments of medieval manuscript are used as pastedowns; endbands are lost; remains of green cloth ties.</p><p>Dr David Pearson</p></p>