| I bought the Breviarium shown above over 10 years ago and now I cannot find the any details in my files other than it was printed in 1688. When you search in WorldCat for a 1688 Breviarium there is only one Breviarium Romanum ex decreto sacrosancti concilii Tridentini restitutum, Pii V. pont.max. jussu editum, et Clementis VIII. primùm, nunc denuò Urbani pp. VIII. auctoritate recognitum. Antverpiae, Ex officina. Plantiniana Balthasaris Moreti, 1688. When I bought it I doubted that it could be a Boyet binding, now after these pages of research there is no doubt in my mind. In Comparative Diagram 1, we compare this Breviarium spine panel with two others that are almost certainly from 1688. |
| Looking closely at the spine panels in Comparative Diagram 1, you will notice that the corner imprints all look to be the same. In Comparative Diagram 2, I have extracted the corners from our Breviarium, here we see at last the complete corner tool, this tool is found on several of the bindings we have looked at, it is certainly one of Boyet's favorite early tools for large sized bindings, and thus deservers a careful study |
| There are so many fantastic experiments that you can make if you have one of these precious bindings in your laboratory. In Comparative Diagram 3, I have assembled the edges and aligned them to find matching features and then calculate the length of this roulette to be about 8.75 cm. I thought that this roulette looked a lot like the Isabelle de Conihout & Pascal Ract-Madoux 2002 palette II, however in Comparative Diagram 4, you can see that there are probably differences, the guards between the raised pods appear to have shoulder pads in this 1688 example, where as in palette II, they do not. Notice also that the 1688 pods (when you can see them) show an oscillation of one empty and one with a seed. |
| Now I have added Comparative Diagram 5 to make these details more visible, the (a-1) to (a-3) pods are empty and the (b-1) to (b-3) pods contain seeds. The blue dot and arrow point to a satellite dot that is accidentally attached to a leaf, the red dot and arrow pointing to an unusually large separation of these dots. The yellow dot and arrow pointing to a unantisipated deflection in the leaf curvature. The green arrow pointing to the shoulder pads. Another noteable feature of this roulette is that the oscillation in the pods also takes place at the ground level where the (a) units appear to have a pointille stem with 4 segments emerging from a leaf platform, in contradistinction to the (b) units that have a stem with a crowning bud. Altogether then quite a bit different compared to palette II. |
| We can see this same edge roulette used as an inner dentelle in Comparative Diagram 6, here we see also some spectacular decorative endpapers, I have discussed this endpaper on another page. (click here to see it). When I bought this Breviarium in 2008 I did not know enough about Boyet to imagine that he would use the fleuron shown in Comparative Diagram 6, however now that I am fully convinced that this is a binding by Boyet, I find another proof in the British Library, where we see this very same fleuron on a confirmed Boyet binding, shelfmarked G4254 (click here to see it) |
| Now we come to the all important palette found on this 1688 Breviarium Romanum, I have not yet placed it in the Boyet palette catalogue so it will have to be number XXI. This palette is really like the big brother of palette VII. |
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| Even experts are sometimes wrong, before you spend thousands on a book, please do your own research! Just because I say a certain binding can be attributed to le Maitre isn't any kind of guarantee, don't take my word for it, go a step further and get your own proof. In these pages I have provided you with a way of doing just that. |
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