Thursday, February 5, 2009

Adventures in Medieval Bookbinding, Part 3: Tegumentum Spadix


The next book I decided to make, following the instructions in Monica Langwe Berg's book Bookbinding: Limp Bindings from Tallinn, is called Tegumentum Spadix (which roughly translates to "chestnut-coloured book cover" which was the colour of the original book).

[for earlier posts in this series, click here ]
The original Tegumentum Spadix dates from 1364. It looks similar to the book I made in my previous post, Tegumentum Rubrum, but has only one layer of leather, and has a hook and eye closure. I didn't know hook and eye closures were around in the 1300s, so I learned something new!
Here's a photo of my version of Tegumentum Spadix:



Think I must be longing for spring to come, as I've been craving bright colours, like this luscious purple that I used for the spine supports. I have various bits of goatskin in bright colours, so I may have to make more of these. In fact, I got so ambitious I made a second Tegumentum Spadix-style journal/sketchbook, this one using the natural edge of the hide, instead of an envelope-style edge:


4 comments:

Kiley said...

I must also be ready for spring as I love the bright accents as well!

I also really like those closures, I've not seen decorative ones like that around here.

Kathleen Coy said...

I LOVE the look of the last one, with the unfinished edge! The color is gorgeous too!

Quinn said...

What a great decorative/practical accent! the closure is great. I teach journal-writing, and there are never enough good journals available!

moonandhare said...

I'm glad you like the colours--it was fun picking them out.

Actually, the whole project of doing these bindings has been really interesting, and a nice distraction during the dark days of January.