Gothic & Renaissance Bookbindings exemplified and illustrated from the author's collection. Vol. I - II [complete set]

2 volumes, 4to (27.5 cm). Vol. I (text): [7] ff., 369 pp.; Vol. II (plates): VIII, 110 plates. Publisher's cloth, black spine labels lettered in gilt (bindings slightly stained and sunned). Second unchanged edition, limited to 600 copies, an authorized reprint of the Cambridge University Press edition of 1928. Ernst Philip Goldschmidt (1887-1954) was a Viennese-born antiquarian bookseller, scholar and bibliophile. Goldschmidt's landmark study of Gothic and Renaissance European bookbindings was based on his celebrated personal collection. Volume I comprises an extensive Introduction, followed by the Catalogue Raisonné, a numbered descriptive catalogue of Goldschmidt's collection arranged chronologically and geographically (268 entries). Goldschmidt's preface records the origins of the project in his undergraduate cataloguing of the Trinity College, Cambridge, bindings and acknowledges the numerous scholars and librarians who provided access to collections and rubbings. The volume concludes with a Synopsis of the Collection and extensive indexes. Volume II contains 110 plates (I–CX, including several sub-numbered plates), reproducing photographs and rubbings of bindings. Three additional plates appear in the text volume. A foundational and still indispensable reference on early European bookbinding, particularly valuable for the study and identification of Gothic and Renaissance panel-stamped, roll-tooled, and monastic bindings, their workshops, tools, and provenance.