The collection of antique books of the Penza Literature Museum features a historical and critical dictionary by Pierre Bayle (volume I) published in France in 1740. The book is in a hard leather binding with deep gold tooling on the cover and spine and beautiful marbled edges.
The marbling of edges is the most expensive type of work on the book design, requiring the finest artistry. The marble pattern was applied with a soft rubber spool. Paints were sprinkled on top of a specially prepared liquid primer. When the paints spread, it created a marble effect. There are several varieties of marble pattern on trims: comb-shaped, zigzagging, with curious names like “pebbles, ” “frog legs, ” in the form of a wave, with a diverse combination of diagonal lines, in the form of curls. The more fanciful the pattern, the more painstaking work was required. Decorating edges in bookbinding became an art in its own right, with its specific subtleties and nuances.
What also makes the book so interesting is that it comes from the private library of the Uvarovs. On the inside of the leather binding, there is a bookplate sticker. In a linear frame with decorative corners, there is a heraldic composition with a shield — the family coat of arms of the Uvarovs. To the left and right, there are birds standing on decorative branches, each having one of its wings open. At the bottom is an inscription in two lines, “From the collection of books of Count Alexei Uvarov.”
