Renaissance Bindings: Markings that Map the Past

In the 1540s, the trend for gilt stamps grew in Cambridge, with Oxford and London following soon after. A binder would place gold leaf between the heated stamp and the binding, and press it into the leather.
The Crown granted the University of Cambridge its coat of arms in 1573. It consists of a cross of ermine, a book in its centre, between four lions. It is likely that Thomas Thomas, the first University Printer in Cambridge, commissioned this centrepiece in the 1580s. This suggests that the book was rebound several decades after it was first printed, perhaps after a change of ownership.

Author: Ptolemy
Title: Geographia Cl. Ptolemaei Alexandrini [The geography of Ptolemy] (Venice, 1562)
Shelfmark: F.20.1 (catalogue record)

16th centuryF.20.1Thomas Thomasbindingscoat of armsgiltstamped