Manuali arabi sulle tecniche di legatura dei libri (sec. XI-XVII)

Islamic bookbinding developed together with the other arts of the book, thanks to the particular status that books, and especially the Coran, had inside that society. Despite the few contemporary studies about Islamic bookbinding techniques and decorations, the translation of three Arabic treatises (ʻUmdat al-kuttāb wa-ʻuddat ḏawī al-albāb written by Ibn Bādīs, Kitāb al-taysīr fī ṣināʻat al-tasfīr by al-Išbīlī, and Ṣināʻat tasfīr al-kutub wa ḥall al-ḏahab by al-Sufyānī) enables us to understand the physical structure of books and to know tools, materials and methods for their production in the western part of the Islamic world in the XI, XIII and XVII centuries. The technical terminology of these treatises proves the high degree of specialization that bookbinders had already achieved at that time.