Koberger binding of Master of Schedel photo 1

Gothic bookbinding, Master of Schedel (Schedel-Meister), Nuremberg, ca. 1500. Bound: Guillermus Alvernus episcopus Parisiensis (1180/90–1249), Opera, cum Tabula Ioannis Rosenbach. ed. Petrus Danhauser. [Nürnberg, Ge. Stuchs, post March 31, 1496], War. A; adl. Guillermus Alvernus episcopus Parisiensis (1180/90–1249), De universo. [Nürnberg, Ge. Stuchs, non post 1497]; adl. Guillermus Baufet (d. 1319) (according to GW: Guillermus Alvernus), Dialogus de septem sacramentis – Guillermus Alvernus: Cur Deus homo; De poenitentia. [Nürnberg, Ge. Stuchs, non post 1497]. University Library in Toruń, sign. Inc. III.27-29.
An example of the so-called ‘Koberger binding’, this time made in the workshop of the anonymous Master of Schedel (Ger. Schedel-Meister). This binding is characterised by a greater level of mechanisation, understood as the desire to limit the bookbinder’s workload while still maintaining the high aesthetic and technical values of the product. This approach is revealed in the pomegranate pattern decorating the upper-cover centrepiece: its elements (fleuron, rue-sprig scrolls and floral decorative detail at the corners) were not created by repeatedly impressing three different dies, but by pressing a wooden block, with a segment of the pattern carved out, four times. As indicated by the identical level of the depression in the leather, in a similar way – i.e. using one block, not many dies – the two-line title inscription was pressed at the top of the cover.

View of the whole upper cover board with fittings