Conservation around the Millennium (Hungarian National Museum, 2001)
Pages - 110
metal thread silk thread leather base hemp string base sewing thread used for the base in the middle of the sections hemp string base over and sunken into the surface of the boards and fixed with nails. The rusty spots left by the nails can be seen in the wooden boards and on the endpapers. It has been proved so far only on the Damas- cenus corvina 2. Enlarged drawing of the headband of corvina OSZK Cod.Lat.345 (from the front) (drawing by Zsuzsana Tóth) [hemp thread core; leather core; metal thread; silk thread; binding thread used for the stitching of the core in the middle of the section] 3. Video-microscopic picture of the fragment of the headband of corvina OSZK Cod.Lat.345: silk core thread and the corroded metal thread entwined around it (photo by Márta Járó) (OSZK Cod.Lat.345) that wooden pegs were used for the fixing instead of metal nails. The use of wooden pegs was customary at that time, and the use of iron nails at the Corvinas was a strange solution. The boards of all the so-far examined codices were made of beech (and not oak). The characteristic fibre pattern of the wood can be seen on the inner sides of the boards where the pastedowns were not glued onto the surface. The boards are 3-5 mm wider at the foredge or they are exactly the same size as the body of the book. At the same time, they are 4-5 mm longer at the head and the tail and they are inwards bevelled on all three sides. COVER AND CLASPS Several leather covers could be identified with microscope at the blind tooling, where the grain layer was not worn. All were goatskins and, according to the chemical analysis, tanned with vegetal matter. One of the characteristic traits of corvina binding is that they were closed with four clasps. Each a clasp was placed at the head and the tail and two on the longitudinal edge. Four clasps were common at Italian renaissance bindings, and it was also common that the hooked clasps were fixed to the frontal board, and they were hooked onto the loop on the back cover. Two clasp types can be found on the corvinas of the OSZK, except for the clasps bearing coats of arms made with enamel technique. At one type the hooked clasp is an oblong brass plate folded in two and decorated with simple lines. Such is e.g. the Asconius codex (OSZK Cod.Lat.427) and the OSZK 110
