Title: Vnum ex quatuor seu [con]cordia euangelista[rum]
Author: Zacharias Chrysopolitanus
Published/Created: [Strasbourg]: [C. W.], 1473
Owner: Morgan Library & Museum, Printed Books and Bindings
Dimensions: H 42.5cm x W 30.5cm x D 6.8cm
This German incunable is bound in dark brown calfskin over beveled wooden boards with blind tooling and catch plates. The boards are laced in with six raised alum-tawed thong supports. The textblock edges are trimmed and colored yellow on all sides. It is sewn all-along, with parchment manuscript waste guards in each quire’s centerfold. The endleaves consist of two layers—parchment manuscript waste and plain paper—pasted to the boards and extended as stubs wrapping around the first and last quires.
The binding had undergone previous leather repairs, but the front board was nearly detached due to the failure of the repair, leaving it hanging by a sewing thread stitched through the pastedown stub. All sewing supports at the front joint were broken. Despite this, the textblock was in good condition.
The primary goal of the treatment was to reattach the front board. To begin, the board was cut loose, and the parchment stubs extended from the front pastedown were slid out from between the first and second gatherings. Given the weight of the wooden board and the oversized book, a laminated piece of airplane cotton and Usu-Mino Thin paper was used as a new hinge. The hinge was adhered beneath the previous repair and under the leather on the front board using Lascaux 498HV for strong adhesion.
Attempts to reinsert the parchment stubs between the gatherings were unsuccessful, as the inner hinge gap was too wide, causing the stubs to be pulled out when the book was opened. Ultimately, the stubs were left folded and unattached to the gatherings. During the process, the stubs were humidified, flattened, and mended with 5% isinglass and 1-ply tawed goldbeater’s skin. This treatment was carried out in consultation with Frank Trujillo.
In preparation, I surveyed several incunabula and discovered a unique parchment guard feature in one of the books. This observation inspired a research project on the use of parchment guards in 15th-century paper textblocks, producing a two-part blog post, Distrust in the Strength of Paper, published on the Morgan website.
