Clarkson Launch 003 - C. Benvestito - Italian Knot-Tack Sewing: A Hypothesis on a Medieval Technique
Channel: International Assoc. of Book & Paper Conservators
Date: 2021-03-10

Claudia Benvestito has been a book conservator at the Marciana National Library in Venice since 1999. From 1992 to 1995 she trained at the European Course for Conservators/Restorers of Book Materials in Spoleto, Italy. She studied under some of the leading specialists in the field including Christopher Clarkson, Nicholas Pickwoad, Anthony Cains, Tom and Sylvia Albro and Robert Futernick. She then trained at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. Claudia is especially interested in the physical structure and behaviour of books and bookbindings. She has worked out solutions for the preservation and/or display of library's archival materials with the main aim of reducing the direct manipulation of each object while respecting its particular shape.

Benvestito, Claudia. ‘Italian Knot-Tack Sewing: A Reliable Hypothesis on a Late Medieval Technique’. Journal of Paper Conservation 20, no. 1–4 (2 October 2019): 61–69. https://doi.org/10.1080/18680860.2019.1747887.

The knot-tack is a technique for sewing books on double supports which features a prominent knot settled over the centre of split-strap sewing supports. This method can be found in archive and library bindings, on manuscripts or printed-books, with stiff or limp covers.
Up until a few years ago, the knot-tack had only been observed in books from Austria and described by Eleonore Klee. Recent findings at the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice (Italy), followed by new sightings in central Italy have opened the way to an expansion of Klee’s observations. Whilst the relationship between the Austrian and the Italian knot-tack sewing structures is not yet clear, this essay aims to describe, with the aid of pictures, the path of the thread in the making of the knot. It presents a number of possible applications for the book conservator, who can make effective use of the knot-tack sewing.