Details
BINDING -- Missale Romanum ex decreto sacrosancti concilii Tridentini restitutum. Venice: Balleone, 1766.
2° (332 x 244mm). Printed in red and black. Engraved title vignette, frontispiece and 2 plates. Contemporary ?South Tyrolean red morocco gilt, covers with multi-coloured onlays of calf, morocco and paper, all exuberantly tooled in gilt to a symmetrical panelled design centering on a sunken oval panel, six brass corner and centre bosses on both covers, spine in five compartments with raised bands, the second and third compartments onlaid with brown/olive morocco, all tooled with repeat pattern made up from various small tools, g.e. with cloth tab-markers (neat repairs to spine, upper joint slightly split), modern cloth box.
An extraordinary binding employing at least 50 separate onlays on each cover: the overall effect is of naive exuberance but the binding also exhibits a high level of technical excellence. The design, apparently executed in the South Tyrol in the Italian Alps, appears to be an interpretation of the Italian richly gilt Missal bindings from the more sophisticated south. We know of no other recorded example of a binding of this type.
2° (332 x 244mm). Printed in red and black. Engraved title vignette, frontispiece and 2 plates. Contemporary ?South Tyrolean red morocco gilt, covers with multi-coloured onlays of calf, morocco and paper, all exuberantly tooled in gilt to a symmetrical panelled design centering on a sunken oval panel, six brass corner and centre bosses on both covers, spine in five compartments with raised bands, the second and third compartments onlaid with brown/olive morocco, all tooled with repeat pattern made up from various small tools, g.e. with cloth tab-markers (neat repairs to spine, upper joint slightly split), modern cloth box.
An extraordinary binding employing at least 50 separate onlays on each cover: the overall effect is of naive exuberance but the binding also exhibits a high level of technical excellence. The design, apparently executed in the South Tyrol in the Italian Alps, appears to be an interpretation of the Italian richly gilt Missal bindings from the more sophisticated south. We know of no other recorded example of a binding of this type.