Development of book binding at home and abroad

One of the binding forms of China ancient books. After the appearance of woodblock printing books, especially after the prevalence of woodblock printing books in the Song Dynasty, the binding methods and forms of books have also changed correspondingly due to the changes in book production methods. Printing books by block printing is different from writing books or copying books. When writing or copying books, you can write them one by one without any restrictions. Then connect them, or roll them into scrolls, or fold them into warps. The block printing of books is limited by the layout, that is, only a certain number of words can be engraved on each page, and usually there are side columns. The leaves printed in this way are all single leaves in units of plates. If the leaves are still rolled or folded, it is time-consuming and inconvenient to stick the leaves together first and then try to remove or cover the left and right margins of each page. So to adapt to the characteristics of engraving and printing, butterfly clothing was produced. The specific method is to take the seam in the center of the page as the axis and fold the printed pages in half word by word. Then put a few leaves in a stack, arrange them in order, poke them together according to the edge of the board mouth, and stick them with paste one by one. Then choose a piece of paper that is slightly wider, thicker and harder than the page, fold it in half and stick it on the side where the mouth of the book is concentrated, which is the spine. Then cut the top, bottom and left together, and a book containing butterflies will be bound. When this bound book is opened, the opening (also called the center) is in the center, and the leaves spread to the left and right, just like a butterfly spreading its wings, hence the name Butterfly Clothes. Because the heart is hidden in the spine of the book, there are redundant pictures outside the column, which is conducive to protecting the characters in the column. "Preface to the History of Ming Dynasty, Art and Literature" said: "The secret cabinet books are all left by the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and they are all exquisite. It is folded outward on all sides, and the insects and rats can't be damaged. " It shows that butterfly dress is a popular binding form in Song and Yuan Dynasties.

Because the leaves in the butterfly suit are all single leaves, when opened, the back without words always faces people, and the front with words faces inward; Moreover, it is easy to connect two single leaves together. When browsing, it is often Shuang Ye, and the next page still sees the back without words, which is extremely inconvenient, so it is gradually replaced by Bao Beizhuang.

Butterfly clothes appeared in the late Tang Dynasty and prevailed in the Song Dynasty. It is to fold the printed surface of the page in half according to the middle seam, then align the pages of the book according to the middle seam, stick them on another wrapping paper with paste, and finally cut them into the binding form of the book (Figure 10-6). Books bound with "butterfly clothes" are called "butterfly clothes" because they look like butterflies flapping their wings and dancing. A total of 130 volumes have been submitted for the five generations of block printing. Since it is called Raiders, it must be a prescription book. Because scrolls are called "volumes", they are not called books. In addition, in the Tang Dynasty, some classics written by the Tang people were loaded with butterflies, so the classics of the Five Dynasties should be loaded with butterflies.