Endbands in the bookbinding traditions of the eastern mediterranean

I capitelli dei libri nelle tradizioni librarie del mediterraneo orientale

Tutor/ Docente Dr. Georgios Boudalis – Curriculum

In-person course, the course will be held in English (in any case the Professor speaks fluent Italian)

Corso in presenza, il corso sarà tenuto in lingua inglese (in ogni caso il Docente parla correntemente l’italiano)
Massimo 15 partecipanti / Maximum 15 participants 

Competenze, conoscenze o esperienze precedenti / Previous skills, knowledge or experience

The course is addresses to both book conservators and bookbinders, it is meant to be intensive and therefore participants are required to have some previous practical experience of the subject.
All materials and tools will be provided.

Obiettivi formativi / Training Objectives

Although beautiful to look at and interesting to reproduce endbands have much more to tell about their provenance, their evolution, their purpose and their relation with other crafts.
The aim of this 5-day practical course is to demonstrate and clarify the variety and characteristics of the different types of endbands used in the bookbinding traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean. The basic technical and decorative variations will be explained through lectures and models. Over the course of the week participants will be able to recreate several types of endbands, from the simple sewn ones, to the more demanding twined endbands – familiar to us from their use in the Coptic, Islamic, Syriac, Georgian, Byzantine, and Armenian bookbinding traditions.
An introductory lecture will explain their evolution in time and place, their classification and terminology, their structural and decorative features as well as their relation to fabric-making techniques. Working materials, a hand out with explanatory drawings and some reading material will be also provided.

Programma del corso / Course programme

Day 1

Introductory lecture on endbands, their history and function within the evolution of historical book structures, their relation to fabric-making techniques. The different endband families will be explained in detail and we will start with the basic techniques of endband sewing, reproducing two different simple endbands, the loop-stitch endbands (also known as Coptic endband), and the wound-packed-on-core endband, used both as a simple endband but also as the primary component of more complicated endbands.

Day 2

The day is dedicated to the reproduction of three different endbands, the Slanted-stitch-on-two-cores (also known as the Byzantine or Greek endband), the Front-bead-with-two-threads and Front-bead-with-two-threads-and-crowning-core endband (both types extensively used originally in European bindings from the 16th century onwards and later on in all different binding structures in the eastern Mediterranean from the late 17th century onward).

Day 3

We will start with the reproduction of the two variations of Chevron endbands, the split and the compact, both extensively used in European bindings and in Byzantine bindings from the late 16th century onward. In the afternoon we will continue with the basic technique of twining which will allow us to proceed with the more complicated twined endbands. We will explore the different structural and decorative variations and we will reproduce the typical endband used in Islamic bindings.

Day 4

The day is dedicated to the making of the more demanding twined endbands with additional cores, exemplified by the endbands used in Armenian, Byzantine, Georgian and Syriac bindings. We will start by working a Syriac twined endband with additional cores and will proceed with the typical Armenian twined endband, probably the most complicated of all Eastern Mediterranean endbands.

Day 5

The final day is dedicated to the use of the ancient technique of tablet weaving used for a twined endband which was made off the book and subsequently sewn to it. This type of endband, identified only recently and found in 15th-16th – century Russian and Byzantine bindings, is a good example of how fabric-making techniques were adapted for making the endbands in books. We will also work with other fabric-making techniques used in endband making, namely Soumak and Braiding.