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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Ex Libris, post: 9709686, member: 14916&quot;]Sometimes I find an intriguing book for sale online. This time I purchased a binding of a so called Roman Gradual (Graduale Romanum in Latin). These books are used by choirs in the Catholic Church to sing from. The larger the choir the larger the books.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]471356[/ATTACH]&nbsp;&nbsp; </p><p>When I saw the advertisement online the binding didn&#039;t seem as large as it actualy is.</p><p><br /></p><p>According to the seller the binding was purchased during a holiday 1960&#039;s in the cathedral of&nbsp; Palma de Mallorca in Spain.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]471357[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>As I understand now the seller was not able to send the binding so I collected the binding yesterday, about 50 km from my home. When I saw the binding for the first time I was flabbergasted how large is was. 75x55 cm (30x22 inches).</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]471358[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>The binding has still an intact &quot;furniture&quot; (metal elements) exept for 1 leather clasp. The binding weighs 22.6 kg (50 lbs)!</p><p><br /></p><p>I made a photo of it in front of some other of my books. The row on the bottom are the normal folio book size.</p><p><br /></p><p>Close ups of the metal parts. A lot of the ornaments are backed with parchment.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]471359[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]471360[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]471361[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>The inside of the binding. All the original sheets of manuscript music on parchment were probabaly sold seperately.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]471362[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>On the inside you still see a ghostly imprint of the former manuscript that was inside. Those looked like this (also from my collection):</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]471363[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>I am not sure how old this binding is. The binding was repaired many times during it existance and tells it&#039;s own story. That makes it so interesting for me!</p><p><br /></p><p>Someone on Twitter (a manuscript cataloguer from the Cambridge University) told me the binding could be 16th century.</p><p><br /></p><p>What do you think about the age of this binding?</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://www.liturgicalartsjournal.com/2023/08/manuscripts-from-treasury-of-royal.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.liturgicalartsjournal.com/2023/08/manuscripts-from-treasury-of-royal.html" rel="nofollow">An interesting article about these books</a>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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