Amelia International Conservation Studies

Syllabus - History and the Making of Early Bookbinding Structures

Summer Semester, 2025
Mon, July 14 - Fri, July 25, 2025 (first two weeks)
Amelia, Italy
Meets daily: Monday – Friday, 09:00 AM – 12:00 PM (4 weeks)
Afternoon Workshop: Monday - Friday, 2:00 PM - 6:00 PM (4 weeks)
Location: Biblioteca Comunale Largo Caduti dì Nassiriya e Kabul, 1 (classroom for both lectures and workshop)
Lead Instructor: Nikolas Sarris

No prerequisites required.

Course Description:
This course is an introduction to the archaeology, the history and the making processes of bookbinding structures, from the early codex to post-medieval European bindings. The course provides a thorough theoretical background on the characteristics, the materials, the bookmaking features and the evolution of the major bookmaking traditions throughout the centuries. In parallel, the students will have the chance to put their knowledge to practice and make different bookbinding models based on typologies of early and historical structures.

Summary of Lectures

  • Archaeology of the Book: principles and methodologies

  • Predecessors of the codex and early writing materials

  • From scroll to codex

  • Early codex forms: Coptic bindings

  • Understanding book structures and bookbinding components

  • Bookbinding terminology

  • Evolution of unsupported structures

  • Islamic bindings

  • Byzantine bindings

  • Western Medieval bindings

  • Bookbinding after the advent of printmaking

  • European bookbinding 15th-19th c.

  • Tacketed and longstitch bindings

  • Bookbindings of archival material

Workshop Content: Making historical bookbinding structures

  •        Coptic multi-quire codex

  •       European Medieval binding

  •        Italian stationary binding

Practical historical bookbinding processes and techniques that will be learned

  • Textblock preparation

  • Sewing different unsupported and supported structures

  • Spine preparation, form shaping and lining

  • Making endbands

  • Wood and paper board preparation

  • Board lacing and sewing attachments

  • Covering with leather, paper and parchment

  • Decoration of leather covers with finishing tools

  • Fastenings systems


Additional Information:
This course is aimed at students and those interested in the history, the evolution and the technical processes involved with the production of historical bookbindings. It will provide them with a basic introduction to the circumstances that led to the birth of the codex and the earliest types of bookbinding structures and to follow the history of this craft until the beginning of the 19th c. A representative sample of binding types will be discussed in depth, through a vast selection of photographic presentations and by examining original bookbindings from the Amelia Historical Archives. The participants will have the chance to enhance their knowledge by making several binding structures, using traditional tools and materials to copy original techniques of each bookmaking tradition discussed.             

The course will include study visits to local libraries and archives, providing the students with a rare opportunity to experience real case studies and see rare bookbinding collections.

Student Learning Outcomes:
 Students who successfully complete this course will be able to:

• Understand the main processes involved into the making of bookbindings

• Become familiar with the historic material, their use, evolution and influence in making the different binding structures

• Acquire a round knowledge of the history and evolution of the main typologies and traditions of bookbinding from the Early Antiquities to the 19th c.

• Identify binding components, styles and dates of their making from original historical manuscripts and printed books

• Understand the main principles and methodologies of the Archaeology of the Book

• Work with traditional tools to prepare and use bookbinding materials

• Reproduce historical bookbindings in every detail of their manufacture


 Recommended Reading
●       Boudalis, (2018). The Codex and Crafts in Late Antiquity, Bard Graduate Center.

●       Bainbridge, A. (ed). (2023). Conservation of Books, Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003162674

●       Roberts, C. & Skeat, T.C, (1983), The Birth of the Codex, Oxford University Press

●       Szirmai, (1990). The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding, Ashgate

Must be taken with the following co-requisite:
Conservation and preservation of books

ARCIFS AICS BOOKBINDING RESTORATION (1).jpg