Say what you like about the efficiency of the Kindle, one day we’re going to wake up and miss the lizards. Among the many lost methods of making an illuminated book in the pioneering days of Renaissance printing, the way we once obtained powdered gold may be the most lamented: ‘In a pot place nine lizards in the milk, put on the cover, and bury it in damp earth. Make sure the lizards have air so they do not die.’ By the seventh day, ‘the lizards will have eaten the brass… and their strong poison will have compelled the brass to turn to gold.’
The design consultant John Boardley quotes this early recipe with relish, and is equally enthusiastic about many other arcane techniques employed as book production liberated itself from the tight hands of monkish scribes and copyists to the revolutionary flat-bed printing presses of the late 15th century.
His survey takes in the printing of the first atlas and musical scores, alongside the first frontispiece and children’s books.
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