Chapter 9
Binding

For Plantin's printing office the production of a book normally ended with the collating of the printed sheets. Most copies of his publications were sold in loose sheets (in albis, en blancq, as it was usually expressed). Customers could then take the books they bought in this form to a binder of their own choice. Many of them did this, but there were some who wanted to save themselves this trouble and preferred to buy their books ready bound. Plantin was willing to meet such requirements, but like the processes discussed in the final section of this chapter, binding was mostly done by specialists outside the house.

Plantin himself began his career in Antwerp as a bookbinder and worker in leather, making cases for combs, mirrors, etc. In fact a number of inlaid bindings in French style have come down from this period that can almost certainly be ascribed to the young craftsman.1. In 1555 Plantin changed his trade and became a printer. According to his own statement, later adopted by his descendants, he had to give up bookbinding after he had been attacked on the Meirbrug in Antwerp and stabbed in the shoulder, which thereafter made any heavy physical work impossible for him. It has been pointed out in another context that Plantin's explanation of this turning point in his

career is not entirely satisfactory.1. At all events Plantin was not so severely handicapped physically as to be unable to continue binding books after 1555,2. partly for an exclusive clientele of rich bibliophiles,3. partly for sale to Antwerp colleagues of his.4. This work included his own publications and those of other publishers at home and abroad. The technical details noted in the account-books are few and far between,5. but the prices speak eloquently enough,6. for these were luxury bindings.

Between 1555 and 1559 Plantin delivered rather more than 173 bindings,1. and presumably he did a large percentage himself. He received 103 fl. 17 st. for these.2. The entries practically cease after 1559.3. Plantin had got himself established as a printer and the firm henceforth demanded all his time and attention. He kept his bookbinding materials, but these were sold with the rest of his possessions in the Vrijdagmarkt in April 1562.4. When he set up his business again at the end of 1563 Plantin nevertheless deemed it necessary to fit himself out once more with bookbinder's tools.5. On 1st May 1564 he entered under the heading ‘ustensiles de relieure’ the purchase of ‘1 grande press à presser des fers, 3 fl. 10 st.; 2 pollisseurs et réglets, 6 st.; 1 roullette à dorer et 2 coings, 1 fl. 5 st.’6. A few months before, on 13th December 1563, he had already bought ‘ovalle grandelette avec ses deux quartiers, 4 fl.; 30 petits fers différents à 3 st. pièce,

4 fl. 10 st.; 2 quartiers accordants pour coings, 16 st. - à dorer sur le cuir;’1. and by 29th January 1564 he was the owner of ‘4 marques au compas de cuivre pour mectre sur le cuir avec le dicton Lab[ore] et Const[antia]’:2. four Plantin printer's marks for embossing on bindings. A few such bindings with Plantin's mark have been preserved.3. One of them, in the Plantin-Moretus Museum, has Ortelius's signature on the title-page.4. Presumably Plantin gave the book, with its binding, to the cartographer as a mark of esteem and friendship. After 1564, even if he was not actually binding books himself, Plantin was stamping bound books with his mark and probably giving most of them as presents to friends or influential persons. Bindings for the general public were done outside the house, however.

On several occasions Plantin had books bound by Parisian craftsmen, including volumes for Cardinal Granvelle's library.5. The other bindings done there were undoubtedly also intended for eminent men in the Netherlands or Spain who were prepared to pay high prices. However, the greater part of the orders were placed in Antwerp itself. These orders were important: in 1566-67 no less than 12,546 bindings were supplied6. by twelve binders (but two of them accounting for

about one third each of the total1.). Plantin paid out 1,349 fl. 2½ st. for this work. The amount spent on bindings rose to 2,238 fl. 12 st. in 1568-69.2. The 1566 figures may be used to relate this item of expenditure to the Plantinian budget:3. 5,102 books were bound, for which Plantin paid 433 fl. 16¼ st. - roughly 3.3% of a total expenditure of 13,041 fl. This was almost four times as much as he then paid for book illustrations, and not much less than what was spent on casting type.

The books Plantin had bound by Antwerp craftsmen included both his own and those of other Netherlands and foreign publishers. The criteria by which Plantin was guided in making his choice - in so far as there were any - are not clear. Sometimes he must have had particular books bound because he expected them to sell well in that form. Sometimes he was simply complying with the wishes of customers, whether private or in the trade.

Plantin had a few very sumptuous bindings done at Paris because both he and his clients appreciated the artistry and skill of the craftsmen there. But the Antwerp binders knew their trade too, and their work was recognized and esteemed beyond the confines of the city: Plantin received many orders from other towns in the Low Countries, where - as at Tournai for example - there were no bookbinders,4. or from countries like Spain where the work of the local practitioners was not acceptable to connoisseurs.5. At the request of colleagues in

Spain, Plantin also sent fermoirs or clasps when these were difficult to obtain there.1. Even Lyons booksellers had books bound in Antwerp, through the intermediary of Plantin,2. although these were probably intended for Spain.3. In later years the Moretuses too had quite a lot of books bound for institutions4. and private customers.5.

The prices Plantin paid the bookbinders naturally varied according to format and the nature of the order. A comparison with the prices Plantin charged for his own work makes it clear that the great majority of these bindings were run-of-the-mill work, the ‘standard’ bindings of today. In the Plantinian account-books bindings are entered under three categories according to the material used: basane (basan or sheepskin), veau (calf) and parchemin (parchment) - the last being subdivided into parchemin de veau and parchemin de mouton. Prices differed slightly from group to group. In the table on p. 250 Joos de Hertoch's average charges in 1566-67 are given as an example.

Additional ornament had to be paid for. A 16mo Petrarch, bound in parchment, with silk ribbons (‘esquil de soie’), was priced at 2½ st. compared with the normal 1½ st.6. However, the addition of silk ribbon made no difference in the case of some octavo Flemish psalters: the four copies with and the two without the ribbons all cost 2 st. each.7. A folio Flemish Bible ‘à 1 fillet dor esq[uil] de soye verd

sur la trence’ cost 11 st.,1. 24 French Testaments in 16mo ‘à fermans’ were 2½ st. each, and 26 copies of the same work en ais de papier were quoted at 1½ st.2. Two octavo Flemish psalters in basan, normally 1¼ st., went up to 2 st. each when clasps were included.3.

Prices were of course much higher for large folio volumes, with or without special ornamentation. ‘La ligature d'un antiphonaire en deux vollumes lié avecq noppes et cuier au dos et riemes’ was billed at 2 fl. 2 st. per volume for the Tournai bookseller Laurent Marchand in November 1573.4. In 1574 the 16 volumes of two copies of the Polyglot Bible cost 20 fl. 16 st., that is to say 1 fl. 6 st. per volume.5. Sums of 2 fl. per volume for a Polyglot Bible6. and 3 fl. per volume for an antiphonary7. were also noted. To the best of the author's knowledge the record is held by the eight volumes of the Polyglot on Italian paper,8. sent to Frankfurt in February 1573; at 8 fl. each they came to 64 fl.9.

Minor processes

To meet the requirements of bibliophile customers a book would sometimes undergo two additional stages of treatment: washing and the enclosing of the text area with ruled lines, drawn by hand in ink or pencil. The two operations seem often to have gone together and are so coupled in three of the four letters from Plantin's correspondence that mention them.1. The fourth letter refers only to washing.2. In all four cases these processes preceded binding and were intended to enhance the beauty of what as far as can be discovered were costly and luxuriously bound books for rich connoisseurs.

In the case of the works mentioned in the first two letters - service books and copies of the Polyglot Bible respectively - the ruling of the text areas was done in Paris. However, when the Polyglot Bible was ready, or nearly so, Plantin found it more practical and economical to invite a French expert to Antwerp instead of sending the copies to Paris for ruling: ‘Jacques Pons de Aix en Provence, regleur de livres,... est parti de Paris pour me venir servir en ceste ville à regler des livres’ and had been working somewhere in Plantin's vicinity for some months in the first half of 1572.3. In March and early April Pons was given some service books to do, and then put to work on copies of the Polyglot Bible that had been completed in the meantime. He was

paid a piece rate. As the books differed in format and number of pages, the payments varied accordingly. On 16th March 1572 he received 2 fl. 10 st. for ruling lines in five missals (four on parchment and one on paper). For two breviaries in 16mo he was paid at 3 st. a volume, and for two diurnals in 24mo, 2 st. each. On 30th March he was paid 10 st. each for three missals (presumably folio) and 5 st. each for three octavo breviaries. On 29th April he was paid 24 fl. for three Polyglot Bibles ‘grand papier’: each copy comprised 1,602 sheets which, at 10 st. per 100, came to 8 fl. A further 24 fl. was paid for three Polyglot Bibles on 30th May 1572 ‘Lesquels ie luy ay payé net parquoy il me doibt achever de regler tous les Dictionaires Grecs [glossaries included in the last volume of the work], qui restoyent pas encores imprimés.’ After this Jacques Pons disappears from the Plantinian accounts and is heard of no more.