Bookbinders have often used waste material from broken and discarded books to make new ones. During the late fifteenth century numerous manuscripts in monastic libraries were replaced with printed copies, and the discarded parchment became useful material for new bookbindings. Many medieval manuscripts survive only as waste material reused in a subsequent bookbinding. Although today this reused waste is regarded as a valued element of a book, its first appearance represented a step toward economizing: a fresh, clean sheet of parchment or paper was not employed where a leftover scrap would serve just as well.
Binding waste can be both visible and hidden. Book covers and endleaves composed of waste can be easily identified as such. Waste used as spine linings and as pasteboard layers becomes apparent only when the book is damaged in a way that exposes what lies underneath the current binding.
Dutch, sixteenth century
The heavy use that liturgical manuscripts
received probably meant that they were
frequently replaced with new scribal copies.
Discarded musical manuscript leaves are
common as binding waste on books printed
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
| Author: | Cicero, Marcus Tullius |
| Title: | M. Tullii Ciceronis Epistolae ad T. Pomponium Atticum. |
| Published: | Antwerp: Christophe Plantin, 1582 |
| Location: | Rare Books (Ex) |
| Call number: | PA6299 1582 |
| Spine height: | 17 cm |
German, seventeenth century
Another binding made of waste liturgical manuscript leaves.
| Author: | Guilandinus, Melchior, 1519 or 1520-1589 |
| Title: | Melchioris Guilandini Papyrus. |
| Published: | Amberg, Germany: Johann Schönfeld, 1613 |
| Location: | Rare Books (Ex) |
| Call number: | 10255.419 |
| Spine height: | 16 cm |
Swiss, sixteenth century
A fifteenth-century German liturgical manuscript as a covering on a Basel imprint from 1551.
| Author: | Ptolemy, 2nd cent |
| Title: | Claudij Ptolemaei Pelusiensis Alexandrini Omnia quae extant opera, praeter Geographiam. |
| Published: | Basel: Henrich Petri, 1551. |
| Location: | Rare Books (Ex) |
| Call number: | Oversize 2752.1551q |
| Spine height: | 32 cm |
British, seventeenth century
Printed waste from the press of England's first printer, William Caxton, as endleaves in this English binding of the late seventeenth century.
| Author: | Bacon, Francis, 1561-1626 |
| Title: | The tvvoo [sic] bookes of Francis Bacon, of the proficience and aduancement of learning, diuine and humane. |
| Published: | At London: Printed for Henrie Tomes, 1605. |
| Location: | Rare Books: Robert H. Taylor Collection (RHT) |
| Call number: | 17th-184 |
| Spine height: | 19 cm |
German, sixteenth century
Several leaves from a French breviary as pastedowns and flyleaves in this early sixteenth-century binding from the lower Rhine region.
| Author: | John, of Damascus, Saint. |
| Title: | Theologia Damasceni. |
| Published: | Paris: Henri Estienne, 1507. |
| Location: | Rare Books (Ex) |
| Call number: | 2686.345.507 |
| Spine height: | 21 cm |
Both manuscript and printed waste have been widely used for spine linings over many centuries and in all regions.
| Author: | Franchini, Giovanni, 1633-1695 |
| Title: | Bibliosofia. |
| Published: | Modena: Heirs of Soliani, 1693. |
| Location: | Rare Books (Extran) |
| Call number: | 5467.356 |
| Spine height: | 25 cm |
Another view of the previous binding.
British, nineteenth century
| Author: | James, G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford), 1801?-1860 |
| Title: | Darnley, or, The field of the cloth of gold. |
| Published: | London: H. Colburn and R. Bentley, 1830. |
| Location: | Rare Books (Ex) |
| Call number: | PR4821.J4 xD3 |
| Spine height: | 19 cm |
Italian, sixteenth century
| Author: | Peter Lombard, Bishop of Paris, ca. 1100-1160 |
| Title: | Sententiarum libri IV. |
| Published: | Roma: Heirs of Antonio Blado, 1569. |
| Location: | Rare Books (Ex) |
| Call number: | 6049.707.385.1569 |
| Spine height: | 18 cm |
Dutch, sixteenth century
| Author: | Sallust, 86-34 B.C. |
| Title: | Bellum Catilinae & Bellum Iugurthinum. |
| Published: | Antwerp: Johann Gymnich, 1547. |
| Location: | Rare Books: Gryphius Collection(GRY) |
| Call number: | GRY 547.05 |
| Spine height: | 17 cm |
Another view of the previous binding.
Swiss, sixteenth century
The toughness of parchment has made it a favorite material to reinforce sewing, both of the textblock sections and of the endleaf folds.
| Author: | Weyer, Johann, 1515-1588 |
| Title: | De praestigiis daemonum, et incantationibus, ac veneficiis, libri V. |
| Published: | Basel: Joannes Oporinus, 1563. |
| Location: | Rare Books (Ex) |
| Call number: | GR535 .W62 |
| Spine height: | 18 cm |
German, sixteenth century
| Author: | Melissus, Paulus, 1539-1602 |
| Title: | Melissi Schediasmatum reliquiae. |
| Published: | Frankfurt am Main: G. Corvinus, 1575. |
| Location: | Rare Books (Ex) |
| Call number: | PA8552.M2 A6 1575 |
| Spine height: | 17 cm |