By the end of the fifteenth century, bookbinders were seeking ways to save time and labor to meet the demands of increased book production and expanding readership. Several changes were made in forwarding methods to increase speed and efficiency. In terms of finishing, the development of panels and rolls helped answer the same need. Rather than creating a cover design by repeated stamping with small tools, the binder could use a roll to run a line of decoration in a single pass, and a panel stamp could be used in a press to make a complete cover design from a single impression.
Flemish binders took the lead in the use of panels, and the technique spread across Europe in the early sixteenth century. Both panels and rolls were skillfully made, engraved or cast with abstract floral designs, depictions of biblical scenes, representations of various virtues, or portraits of contemporary notable persons such as Erasmus, Luther, and Melanchthon. In Germany, panels were often used in combination with concentric rectangles created with decorative rolls.
French, sixteenth century
A sixteenth-century French manuscript in a contemporary panel-stamped brown calf binding by Andre Boulé.
| Title: | Problemata theologica. |
| Locale: | Paris, 1515. |
| Location: | Manuscripts Division |
| Call number: | Princeton Ms 90 |
| Dimensions: | 18 x 13 cm |
Flemish, fifteenth century
Flemish panel-stamped calfskin binding on a Basel printing from 1490.
| Author: | Bertoldus, Dominican, fl. 1350 |
| Title: | Horologium deuotionis circa vitam Christi. |
| Published: | Basel: Johann Amerbach, not after 1490. |
| Location: | Rare Books: Incunabula Collection (ExI) |
| Call number: | 5866.174 |
| Spine height: | 16 cm |
French, sixteenth century
A French incunable in a brown calfskin panel-stamped binding.
| Author: | Gregory I, Pope, ca. 540-604 |
| Title: | Epistole ex registro. |
| Published: | Paris: Ulrich Gering and Berthold Rembolt, 1508. |
| Location: | Rare Books: Graphic Arts |
| Call number: | Early books -- arranged chronologically |
| Spine height: | 21 cm |
German, sixteenth century
A German sixteenth-century blind-stamped pigskin binding.
| Author: | Brodeau, Jean, 1500-1563 |
| Title: | Epigrammatum graecorum libri VII. |
| Published: | Basel: Froben, 1549. |
| Location: | Rare Books (Ex) |
| Call number: | 2978.1549q |
| Spine height: | 33 cm |
French, sixteenth century
Strip panels were a characteristic of French bindings in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
| Author: | Juvenal |
| Title: | Iuuenalis familiare co[m]mentu[m]. |
| Published: | Lyons: Estienne Gueynard, 1511. |
| Location: | Rare Books (Ex) |
| Call number: | PA6446.A21 M36 1511 |
| Spine height: | 26 cm |