Where has the Beauty of Bookbinding Gone? Exploring Gauffered Edges

In a previous post I talked about finding some beautifully bound books in University of the Pacific's library that had some beautiful designs stamped onto the edges of their pages.

A little bit of digging provided some insight into the rarely seen practice. The technique is called gauffered edges, and was popular in the 16th and 17th centuries before falling out of fashion.

More pictures and history of gauffered edges after the jump.

 Though gauffered edges commonly refers to gold gilded edges, it can be any sort of decoration on the three non-bound edges of a books pages.

The designed can be applied in a variety of ways, including gilt, ink stamps, or embossing.