Sellers and Buyers of the Lyon Book Market in the Late 15th Century

Without a university or parliament, Lyon became an important centre of book production and distribution over the last quarter of the fifteenth century. In the course of these years, favourable economic conditions with the development of a fourth annual fair and elaborate banking services, turned the provincial merchant town into a European marketplace. Constant movement of people, goods, and money, as well as a ten-year tax exemption for newcomers to the printing business, attracted printers and booksellers who placed Lyon at the heart of networks operating near and far. Contemporary material evidence from the buyers’ side documents the markets targeted by the Lyon book merchants during this key period, some of their strategies, and skills at time and distance management. It also suggests how, in their spheres of influence, the development of the book trade could have played a part in the evolution of urban and rural society. With little archival evidence at hand, we need to reassess the larger organisation of the Lyon book trade in the international landscape and the part played by the importation of books. A mapping of available data, and observations on bindings and provenance, is helping to define the role of the city in the circulation of books, printed locally or elsewhere, throughout France.


Introduction
The substantial historiography of the book in Lyon has traditionally emphasised the concept of the book as merchandise on account of the city's commercial expansion and the reputation of its fairs during the Renaissance. 1 Nevertheless, there is limited documentary evidence shedding light on the early book trade in Lyon itself. As a consequence, many studies have relied upon the analysis of its large printed production and the originality of its publishing, in order to understand how the provincial merchant town evolved into a major centre of the book in late fifteenth-century France. By studying contemporary material evidence in the French collections of incunabula, the article offers new perspectives on the paths of book circulation and the role played by Lyon and its fairs as a hub of book selling at the turn of the century.

Avignon, Toulouse, and the Early Lyon Book Trade
Two essential documents from Avignon and Toulouse provide evidence of the part played by the 'city on the Rhône' in the broader organisation of the book trade in the 1470s. One of them records the sale in March 1478 by Barthélemy Buyer, 2 the merchant who had introduced printing in Lyon a few years before, of a dozen editions in sixty-eight volumes, to the Avignon booksellers Alain and Joachim de Rome. Seven editions were printed for Buyer by Guillaume Le Roy or by newly arrived German printers like Martin Huss or Johann Siber. These books, in French, were sold bound and illuminated, which explains the somewhat high price of nine and a half florins for each of the three copies of the Légende dorée. The others were law books, eight editions which Buyer had to purchase from other places, mostly in Italy. He sold them unbound for thirty-five florins, a fifth of the total sum. 3 A year before, Lyonnaise merchants were cited, along with other book merchants, in the complaints of the illuminators of Toulouse coping with the invasion of printed books which, they said, had already been destroying their business for several years. 4 The considerable output of printed books at the time in Germany and Italy explains why imported German and Italian imprints seemed available in abundance in Toulouse or in Avignon. 5 The past twenty years have seen the publication of prominent studies which add a new perspective to the information extracted by book historians from wellknown sources, like the correspondence of the Basel printer Johann Amerbach. 6 First, Lotte Hellinga's close examination of material evidence in the books produced by Peter Schoeffer in Mainz sheds unprecedented light on the development of his marketing techniques in the 1460s, including the binding and decoration, in his own premises, of books produced in other cities, as well as his own production. These strategies demonstrate both his capacity to adapt and his knowledge of the European mercantile sector, which lay behind the success of his enterprise. 7 Another remarkable study, Miguel Angel Pallarés Jiménez's exploration of an impressive quantity of archival documents on the networks of Paul Hurus from Constance, reveals how he integrated his book printing and selling businesses into the international trade, giving clues about the massive importations of foreign books into Spain in the last decade of the century. 8 Both studies are of great help in assessing the place occupied by Lyon in the larger landscape of the trade. They also tend to redefine the value of Buyer's Avignon sale as a prototype of how the Lyon book enterprise must have developed, with a certain proportion of books imported from elsewhere. While assuming that the Lyon book merchant was constantly trying to produce more editions in his native city, we might wonder if he had not already appreciated the benefit of selling books imported from Italy, where he had strong business connections, or from Basel through his new partners. 9 It would have added a substantial profit to the sale of his own production. Because of Lyon's geographical position, it is not unlikely that printed books for sale had arrived in transit in the city before Lyon saw the installation of its first printing press.

A Commercial Crossroad
A strategic location at the junction of major European routes, Lyon then witnessed a great economic expansion tied to the Venetian spice trade. 10 The holding of a fourth annual fair after 1463 marked an important step forward in its prosperity and increased the presence of foreign merchants and bankers in the city. The dynamics generated by this success made Lyon even more attractive for the merchant elites of the surrounding area who shared the same culture and sought an association with the Lyonnais' business model. 11 New printers did not pay taxes, 12 a benefit which enticed German, Italian and French craftsmen to move to Lyon. Most settled around the rue Mercière, the commercial street, linking the two bridges on the Saône 13 and the Rhône [ fig. 1]. A strategic place for book selling, the street formed a long corridor between the southern gate of the Pont du Rhône, the point of access of the 'great trade' with Italy, and the multiple northern routes. With five main gates and many small harbours on the Saône in particular, the city was well equipped as an international hub of commerce, where the regular fairs granted the constant circulation of goods, people, and money. The western toll gate, Porte des Farges, on the hill of Fourvière, would become of particular importance for the book trade. The main road to Toulouse began here, used by the companies trading saffron and furs between southern Germany and Spain, via Lyon. 14 Consignments of paper, parchment, and leather from Auvergne entered the city at the same gate. The paper mills of Ambert, in a small valley in the heart of Auvergne, produced the quality paper required for printing. This production, in the hands of a few families, would increase during the last quarter of the fifteenth century to fit the growing needs of Lyon's printing presses so that by 1500 they supplied most of the paper used for printing in the city. 15 Though access was difficult, Ambert still benefited from its proximity to the much travelled roads crossing the Massif Central. During the last decades of the fifteenth century, these land roads between Lyon and Toulouse via Saint-Flour or Le Puy-en-Velay, along with the fast flowing Loire river close by, would be the main paths for the exportation of books towards the West and South of France, where the Lyon merchants operated. Major contributions on the Lyon book trade describe at least one hundred and sixty principal agents in the city's book world, 16 and reveal great discrepancies in their propertybased level of taxation, between a handful of entrepreneurs providing the finance and many workmen. Although they do not appear in the tax-rolls, a large number of agents must have also filled the other diverse professions which were required by the busy world of the the papermakers of Ambert with the successful Lyon book merchants, who might have invested in the costly maintenance of the mills and provided the indispensable rags. This partnership opened the markets of southern France to families of papermakers like the Boyssons, soon to become booksellers themselves; Gascon,Grand commerce et vie urbaine,[1][2][3][4][5]131,134 provides an estimate of the paper supply entering Lyon about twenty years later: 459 loads of two bales (to be balanced on the sides of a mule), from Ambert were recorded over nine months of the year 1522-23 at the toll gate des Farges, out of a total of 501 loads of paper from various origins which had entered the city. It is not clear however, how much of these supplies consisted of thick paper or cardboard destined for the many manufacturers of playing cards, another booming activity in Lyon at the time.
city's book trade. 17 Without a university or parliament, Lyon was not a known centre of learning, unlike Toulouse or Avignon. Tradesmen, merchants whose sons were studying law elsewhere, and doctors composed most of the lay public. The city counted also many clerics, and senior clergy, but only a few families or personalities had remarkable libraries. Geared to export from the start, production consisted mostly of medieval compilations, translated into French by local Augustinian monks. 18 A sizeable proportion of editions including bibles, religious books reflecting the preoccupation with salvation, featured abundant illustrations. This cautious strategy made no attempt at introducing a new spirit in art and literature, but instead established the copying of already existing models as a regular practice. 19 Like texts, and types, many woodblocks from Basel or Germany moved to Lyon or were reproduced there. 20 One initiative of Lyon publishing, chivalric romances, planted the seeds from which French popular literature would later flourish. 21 Books of sermons, law and medical books were another local speciality during the entire period, so an urban clientele of clergy, doctors, and lawyers remained the main target of the Lyon book merchants for several decades.
The structures of the Lyon book trade suggest that the way of doing business was flexible. They reveal multiple short-term partnerships as well as competition, shared housing and costs, multi-faceted activities, a pragmatism and ability to organise and seize opportunities with minimal risk.    Diminishing the risks could also explain in part the strategies which lay behind the size of the editions printed in Lyon, once believed to have been issued in large number of copies. This presumption can now be reassessed in the light of studies on Johannes Siber's printing of law books. While many questions remain about the subject, it is clear that Siber's production could never compare, nor compete with the enormous Venetian production, even with the increase in the number of his editions towards the end of the century. Small print runs, followed by republications, might have been one of his strategies to adapt production to the fluctuations of the market and reduce the risks taken. 22 Such adjustments were likely to be one of the reasons behind the success of the Lyon merchants. While France was their first market, Spain and Portugal were always part of the picture, which explains in part the Lyonnais' aggressive marketing in Toulouse, the gate to the Iberian Peninsula. Merchants like Barthélemy Buyer, and his brother Jacques, knew that a more or less permanent stock of books kept in an inn in the city was sufficient, not waiting for a demand but creating the demand in an open market. 23 By maintaining available funds and making wise investments, Barthélemy Buyer died a rich man in 1483. On the contrary, printers in Albi fell victim to such ruthless competition and printing stopped in the city in the early 1480s. 24 Likewise, German printers in Toulouse like Henri Mayer, eager to produce beautiful editions on a large scale, were all too familiar with the city's debtors' prison and died in poverty. 25 22 Coq, Ornato, La production des incunables, 315-22. 25 Cassagne, "Les imprimeurs allemands et leur activité toulousaine", nos. 24-7 describes Henri Mayer's difficulties in reimbursing his debt of 34 livres tournois in 1492, for the financial help he had received from the Lyon bookseller Pierre Hongre, for the repair of his types. In November 1494, the printer also had to deposit 700 copies of his Barthomomaeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum [Spanish]. Tr: Vicente de Burgos. Toulouse: Henricus Mayer, 18 Sept. 1494. Folio. GW 3424; ISTC ib00150000, with the agent of Guillaume Nuisson of Ambert, as security for his debt of 425 livres tournois, the price of the 400 reams of grossi bastardi paper which he had purchased for this edition. From the Median size of the paper (I am grateful to Paul Needham for this indication), it can be assumed that Mayer could have printed a great number of copies, perhaps 1,200, of his Bartholomaeus, a large print run which he could not sell fast enough to allow him to repay his debts, as he probably lacked the sale and distribution networks this ambitious operation would have required. Fairs, Transport, and the Distribution of Books A key to a successful distribution, the regular fairs, 26 each lasting two weeks, provided sophisticated banking services, the exchange, free circulation of money and foreign currencies, and the institution of the Payements, organised by the Florentines after each fair. 27 Lyon was already known as a centre for the book in the 1480s. 28 Paul Hurus, successful both as a printer-bookseller in Zaragoza and as a partner in several German merchant companies, attended the fairs, purchasing equipment for his or others' presses, and bismuth for the fabrication of his types. 29 He had good relations with Mathias Huss, whose woodblocks of the Legenda Aurea 30 he reused in later editions. A multi-faceted businessman, he was exporting furs from Spain to Germany via Lyon as well. Hurus's attendance at the fairs must have allowed him to buy the editions which were in demand in Zaragoza from other workshops around Europe, instead of producing them himself. 31 The exchange of correspondence between Koberger and Amerbach provides evidence of the growing activity of the Lyon fairs. It shows how, after Frankfurt's fairs, by the end of the century, they had become an important cog in the larger engine of the book trade, providing safe roads and a good alternative for payments. 32 When the seventh and last part of his 'Hugo Bible' was finally ready in Basel in 1502, Koberger asked Amerbach to send three hundred copies to his agent at the fair of Lyon. 33 This was business on a large scale: all Bene, Capponi, Nasi, Nori and Pazzi families. He also documents the payments and money operations during the fairs, and the systematic use of the bill of exchange.
28 This was true earlier for the Frankfurt fairs which attracted not only booksellers but other merchants and craftsmen whose activities were linked to the book trade, such as paper merchants, binders, or type-founders; Flood, "'Omnium totius orbis emporiorum compendium'", 11. books passing through such commercial crossroads could come from anywhere and be sold near or far to booksellers or individual buyers. 34 Nomadic booksellers such as Johann Schäbeller (also known by his evocative nickname Wattenschnee or 'slush-in-snow'), attending the fairs, must have been major agents in the distribution of books. Based in Lyon but often on the road, he acted as the multi-tasked factotum for Koberger, while also representing Amerbach in Lyon, and the Lyon printers in Paris. 35 As international market places, the fairs obviously played an essential part in the circulation of books, blurring the boundaries traditionally drawn from a geographically-anchored printed production. Time management was essential between  the printing and selling of an edition, even more so when targeting far-away markets. Even with a knowledge of sales networks and logistics, it could be challenging to adjust the cost of transport to include the many variables of distance, speed, weight transported, and the multiple contingencies of travel, like flooding and bad weather. 36 On the essential Lyon-Toulouse axis, as across the Alps and the Pyrenees and many parts of southern France, the freight was carried on mule-back. Sure-footed and economical, mules could carry up to four hundred pounds, at a pace of about thirty-four kilometres per day, a train of six mules transporting the equivalent of a small wagon. Transport of goods by land could add a quarter to the price of the goods themselves, whether on mule-back or by wagon, and cost three times more than transport by water. 37 With very few depictions available, we can only speculate if books equipped with bindings circulated in bales like paper and books in sheets, or in wooden chests with other precious goods [ fig. 2].
In any case, this aspect of the commerce of books, little documented so far, must have added to the final sale price, and as such, played an important part in the organisation of the book trade. Following a strict calendar, the fairs generated great pressure on book production itself and on transport as well. Arriving on time at the fair meant not only the possibility of selling large quantities of books, but also meeting payments, and saving on tolls. 38 In good weather, it would take two weeks between Toulouse and Lyon, over often difficult terrain. 39 The important logistics required by long-distance transport  39 The detailed records of the Ravensburg merchant company show variations in the time needed to complete the itinerary between Zaragoza and Ravensburg, with an average of 36 days; Schulte, Geschichte der Großen Ravensburger Handelsgesellschaft, 1: 116; 2: 28-32. The transporter Beltran de Puey from Borça provides an example of transport on the same road at great speed. He undertook to leave Oloron Sainte-Marie, on the French side of the Pyrenees, with three loaded mules on 29 October 1489, and arrive at the fair of Lyon on 8 November, completing the 700 kilometers in about nine to ten days, a dubious claim. For this accomplishment, no doubt putting the men and beasts under great strain, he would have been paid the equivalent of 7 escudos per mule, each escudo being of 28 gros or soldi; Pallarés Jiménez, La imprenta de los incunables de Zaragoza, 171, nos. 795, 295. On the contrary, a late arrival generally meant also implied having at one's disposal a good system of circulation of news; keeping up-to-date and adjusting to unexpected circumstances were indispensable conditions of successful business.
Using the data available in ISTC, the Incunabula Short-Title Catalogue, the current holdings of Lyon imprints were mapped by Philippe Nieto from the French National Archives, twelve years ago. 40 Most of the French collections have not moved far from their original place of arrival, over the centuries. The superimposition of a map of the main trade routes from Lyon, the city being conveniently located at the centre of a web of interconnecting roads and waterways, 41 reveals the importance of this infrastructure for the circulation of books.
The resulting map [ fig. 3] shows that books were purchased and used early on, in cities and towns located along the paths followed by the general trade. Contemporary material evidence gathered in a loss of profit for the merchant and penalties for the transporter who, as would have been the case for Beltran de Puey, often had to pay for the storage of the goods for several weeks, until another sale opportunity arose, often at the next fair.  the Catalogues régionaux d'incunables des bibliothèques publiques de France also helps greatly to visualise the business of the book merchants. Once integrated into international databases such as MEI, the Material Evidence in Incunabula database, in the future, the combined data could extend considerably the local and national perspective already provided by the French regional catalogues, contributing to the spatial and temporal mapping of the European book-trade. 42 The map of Lyon editions in France reveals their significant distribution in the northern part of the country, more than expected, since it was an area which traditionally was controlled by the much wider and more powerful Parisian book trade. The high proportion of Lyon imprints in Normandy, in particular, might be due to the Lyonnais' active networking in Paris, 43 but also possibly to the importance of the commercial exchanges on the trade route which stretched directly from Anjou to Normandy, avoiding Paris. 44 Lyon typography is also well represented in the collections preserved in the region of Poitou, with a concentration of the earliest Lyon editions, perhaps because of its long history of trading cloth with Lyon. 45 On the other hand, in the region of Toulouse, where the Lyonnaise merchants had foreseen an opportunity, the earliest surviving title is from 1477, 46 perhaps because they were selling mostly imported books. Early provenance information reflects the penetration of the French-language editions into the world of craftsmen and shopkeepers. Nicolas Lefebvre, master glove-maker in Paris owned the Miroir de la redemption, Pierre Guilhement, a pin-maker in Montbrison, used a copy of Le Propriétaire des Choses, and Guilhem Delteil, a shoemaker in Cahors, read the book of the Prestre Jean and possibly Pierre de 42 The retroconversion programme of the CRIs has already allowed a partial integration of this data into the portal created by the Biblissima Consortium. 46 Péligry, CRI, 4,: 15-6.

• Sellers and Buyers of the Lyon Book Market in the Late 15th Century
Studi di storia 13 739 Printing R-Evolution and Society 1450-1500, 727-752 Provence et la belle Maguelonne as well. 47 It also documents the second-hand market, still at a high price for modest buyers like Pierre Thome, a cleric in Lyon, who had to rely upon barter in order to afford his copy of the Fortalitium fidei. 48 It is likely that highly-travelled roads were more than simple connecting routes; they acted as a live transmission of news and cultural exchanges, and occasional book stalls in smaller market towns along these roads might have served as selling locations. The ephemeral display of books in churches or in inns appears to have provided at least a first visual encounter with these expensive and forbidding objects in rural areas. 49  Claudin,Les enlumineurs,les relieurs,9,29. Literate buyers did not only buy books in Lyon, Paris or Toulouse. A certain number were probably purchased in smaller cities and towns along the road before the advent of bookshops and booksellers in the late 1490s or even the early 16th century, like the purchase in Mende in 1477 "ab impressoribus" of Caracciolus, Robertus, Sermones de timore divinorum iudiciorum etc.  65)), the main city between Rodez and Toulouse, bears the marks of ownership of the local Carmelite convent and a binding whose blind stamped decoration and manuscript pastedowns relating to the Cathedral of Rodez demonstrate that it likely originated in the same area during the same time period. It also suggests that, like in Mende, in the cathedral cities of Rodez and Albi, travelling printers had great opportunities of selling their production. In Auvergne, marks of purchase show that books acquired by priests or monks or merchants, some known, others less so, but whose names are often rooted in local history, did not move around over the centuries. They have re-The Incunabula Short-Title Catalogue shows that Lyon editions reached Spain and Portugal more steadily after 1490, with the general increase in the production and sale of books. By attending the fairs and through his networks, Paul Hurus must have played a major part in the massive importations into Spain of books printed in other European centres of production, via Toulouse and the Canfranc Pass. This enterprise, sustained by German commercial companies, was stimulated by the charts of franchise of Zaragoza and the Royal Laws of Castilla, which opened up Spain to the importations of foreign books in the 1480s. A major opportunity for the book trade, it coincided with the development of the fairs of Medina del Campo and Valladolid over the following years. These dynamics likely transformed Zaragoza into a large open market for Hurus who managed to secure the monopoly of book production and sale in the city during the whole period. 50 The availability in Zaragoza, at the same time, of leather, parchment, and skilled craftsmen, could also have allowed on a large scale books to be finished off with binding and decoration before they were dispatched to the fairs and throughout the country. 51 This situation must ultimately have created the conditions over the following years for the penetration by Lyon book dealers of the Iberian Peninsula markets, a major step-change which they could not really have contemplated beforehand on such a scale. 52 In Lyon itself, the overall evolution of the market is also noticeable, with the increased production of law books, and the arrival in the sector of Johann Trechsel, Jean de Vingle, and Nicolas Wolf, who started printing theology and philology. The learned networks of Trechsel and Josse Badius, his son-in-law, and their respective connections to the Dominican and Carmelite orders, 53 facilitated the success of their editions in convents, monasteries, and colleges, 54 as well as in European mained in towns such as Aurillac, Saint-Etienne, Saint-Flour, etc., where their first buyers left them; Frasson-Cochet, Aquilon, Auvergne, 12. 53 Wadsworth, Lyons 1473-1503 In his prefaces, Badius often expressed his views about the triumph of printing, alluding to intellectual as well as commercial profit. In Occam, Guilielmus, Dialogorum libri septem adversos haereticos, etc. Ed: Jodocus Badius Ascensius. [Lyon]: Johannes Trechsel, [not before 12 Sept. 1494]. Folio; GW 11908; ISTC io00009000 in particular, dedicated to Trithemius, he praised the printing press for making texts widely available via the multiplication of affordable copies; White, Jodocus Badius Ascensius, 129, 156-8. The works of Occam found a special reception in the Parisian colleges, such as the Collège de Navarre with its robust nominalist tradition, as testified by the number of copies owned by masters and students of the college. Cf. for instance Occam, Guiliel-scholarly and erudite circles, away from the general trade networks.
These newcomers introduced new marketing strategies and possibly a more ambitious level of production for exportation around Europe. 55 They also imported humanism from Italy while the city was in the process of becoming the outpost of the French invasion of the Peninsula. 56 5 Lyon Bindings on Local and Foreign Books, as Evidence for the Organisation of the Book Trade The flow of foreign books which travelled via the city can now be documented in part by the presence of bindings added in Lyon for copies of editions imported from Basel, Venice, and other Italian cities. While some of the volumes remained in Lyon itself, others from the same sources are now preserved in French collections around the country. The identification of these bindings as 'made in Lyon', corroborated by local provenance evidence of early purchase or use, was made possible by several elements, which hint at a possible largescale binding operation.

Printed Fragments 57
Among the evidence gathered from the CRIs, the original bindings preserved in Auvergne on foreign and Lyon imprints include printed fragments, mostly recycled as pastedowns, flyleaves, or in the composition of cardboard covers. They are printer's waste (leaves of paper discarded by the printer, which never formed part of a book) from thirteen Lyon editions issued by seven Lyon print shops. 56 According to Wadsworth, Lyons 1473-1503  57 For the distinction between printer's waste and binder's waste, and the complexity of evidence provided by printed fragments used in bindings for the earliest Dutch typography, cf. Hellinga,Incunabula in Transit, been identified so far, the popular Alexander de Villa Dei's Doctrinale, printed by Guillaume Le Roy in the early 1480s. 58 If most of the Auvergne bindings containing these fragments are made of ordinary yellow or green leather, usually sheepskin over cardboard, with two or four leather ties, a few are also found in blind-tooled bindings on wooden boards. The same binding types can be observed on the incunabula held in Lyon which include Lyon printed fragments. 59

Blind-Tooled Covers on Cardboard or Wooden Boards
An early binding on an edition of Guillaume Le Roy, now in Champagne, 60 with a fleur-de-lys painted au pochoir in lozenges, reflects a technique and style used in Lyon and its vicinity at the time. 61 This binding led to the realisation that the pattern of the same motif of fleurs-de-lys in lozenges in a central panel, or in friezes, appears on a dozen blind-tooled bindings on Lyon imprints which have remained in the city since the 1490s. They are equally found on books printed in Basel or in Italy, which have also remained in Lyon until today. This simple observation was confirmed by items in the collection of blind-tooled bindings of the Mazarine Library, and by Denise Gid who examined similar bindings on Lyon, Basel, Ven-  With an increasing number of bindings which can be attributed to Lyon production, it has become noticeable that multiple tools of the most common motifs of fleurs-de-lys or rosaces were used inside lozenges or friezes, in a central panel, or in the composition of borders. The identification of additional tools with motifs such as Occitan crosses, or four-point stars is also increasing, as they have been found blind-stamped either individually or duplicated to create a pattern [ fig. 5], often in association with the fleurs-de-lys which served as a starting point for this study.
Although these motifs were commonly used elsewhere, it is the combination of their different features and layout which hints at these bindings' Lyon origin: 63 • Most of the bindings encountered are made of sheepskin and often quite worn, on wooden unbevelled boards. • Their blind-tooling seems hastily applied. 62 Gid, Catalogue des reliures françaises estampées à froid, 31, 34, 71, 97, 283, 390. 63 Our understanding of the particular value of this evidence for estimating the importance of the Lyon bookbinding activities is only very recent: the inventory of the 'families' of bookbinding tools used in Lyon has just started. It should expand significantly as early bindings in other French collections are examined.
• They bear two clasps, with leather straps (often red-dyed), always fixed by three round-headed nails to the front board, and attaching onto the lower board on square or semi-circular shaped metal plates with the edge rolled to form a lip. • Their original spines, unfortunately often replaced, can show a crude asterisk-shaped mark, repeated in between the supports, or criss-crossing lines. • They can also include printed fragments from Lyon print shops, used as pastedowns or flyleaves. • The volumes have three or four supports. Most bindings with three supports recorded so far feature high-raised double supports. 64 Two distinctive and very recognisable tools, unfortunately hard to reproduce, have been identified so far in conjunction with the features mentioned above. The first tool represents the scene of the Temptation in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve shown around the apple tree where the serpent is entwined, presenting Eve with apples. 65 Although very worn, it has so far been identified, with its repetition forming a border, on books printed in Milan (1488) and Chambéry (not after 1486), which are still in Lyon, and on a Venetian imprint (1494) now in Auxerre. 66 The second tool, a small shieldshaped trademark, 67 is divided vertically, bearing on the right-hand side, the trademark of Guillaume Balsarin, a successful bookseller in Lyon. On the left is the trademark of another bookseller or merchant, possibly the reversed mark of the Lyon bookseller Jean Du Pré. It appears twice on the top and on the lower part of the back cover of a 1495 Venetian edition of Ficino's Epistolae. 68 The combination of tools, layout, clasps, fragments, and other occasional marks confirms that a sizeable proportion of Lyon imprints and imported books were bound, probably as an add-on value, before being sold on the local as well as national market. 69 Indeed, their careless and hasty blind-tooling suggests more a process of mass production rather than the skilled artisanship of one or two workshops. As in other important European centres for the production and sale of books, the necessary resources in material and human skills were indeed available in Lyon for such production A cardboard binding could represent a supplement of 15%. Cf. for instance the purchase note in Paulus de Sancta Maria, Scrutinium scripturarum. Mainz: Peter Schoeffer, 7 Jan. 1478. Folio. GW M29976; ISTC ip00205000 (BM Aurillac Inc 1); Frasson-Cochet, Aquilon, 217, 'Costat in albis 20s. ts. ligatura, 3s. 4d. ts.' for a binding with 8 leather ties, originally covered with a manuscript fragment. Could the robust blind-tooled bindings made in Lyon add up to 50% to the price of the book itself? Such a substantial increase in the book price might explain why a certain number of books were provided with bindings in the city. of large quantities of books. 70 Binding books could also have been a commercial strategy to stimulate the sale of unsold copies, as several printed fragments, issued years after the books in whose bindings they survive, would seem to suggest. It was also possibly proposed as a convenience to remote buyers in smaller French towns which were still lacking professional binders. 71 Although books might have travelled lighter in albis, in barrels or bales, simple cardboard or wooden boards, however heavy, offered better protection against the hazards of long distance transport. Binding might thus have been identified early on by the pragmatic Lyon book merchants as a means for both extra protection and extra income. Indeed in Avignon, in the early years of the Lyon book trade, Buyer sold the books he had produced himself already bound and decorated. It remains to be seen whether the bindings on Guillaume Le Roy's imprints from the 1470s and 1480s which have survived in the French collections will indicate that this represented an important aspect of book dealing. The early 1490s also saw the arrival in Lyon of Bonino Bonini with Bartolomeo Trot, his agent, and Baldassare da Gabiano, all with strong ties to Venice, 72 who opened book deposits on the rue Mercière. It was a significant event: their arrival would have a lasting effect on the evolution of the book trade in the city. So, once they have been thoroughly documented, the Lyon bindings recently identified on Venetian imprints might well add further evidence for the choice made by the Venetian book trade of Lyon and its fairs, as a step towards the French and northern European markets, during that last decade of the fifteenth century. The close examination of more bindings in collections preserved around France should help in the assessment of the proportions of Lyon binding as an enterprise. It might also reveal more about the large strategies at work in Europe in the hands of the international book trade, at the turn of the fifteenth century. 71 The 1490s saw the opening of the first book shops in smaller cities. The first local bookseller in Clermont-Ferrand, Jean de Bourgogne, opened his shop near the cathedral in 1491, possibly providing bookbinding along with the making of registers, and a small stock of imprints for sale ;Egullion,Imprimeurs,libraires et relieurs,16,18,97. Previously, bookbinding could have been supplied by itinerant binders; Delmas, Les reliures à Rodez, 12-13. It was sometimes done by the local priest, like Pierre Delolme, also a copyist and illuminator in 1493 in Le Puy-en-Velay, or like Jehan de Fenils, a priest in Mende, as a supplementary source of income; Haute-Loire. Archives Départementales, Reliures et couvrures anciennes en 30,