Thomas Mahieu (born between 1515 and 1527 – died after 1588), also known as Thomas Maiolus, was a French courtier and bibliophile with a special interest in decorative

bookbinding Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book of codex format from an ordered stack of ''signatures'', sheets of paper folded together into sections that are bound, along one edge, with a thick needle and strong thread. Cheaper, b ...

s. Mahieu was advisor and secretary to

Henry II of France Henry II (french: Henri II; 31 March 1519 – 10 July 1559) was King of France from 31 March 1547 until his death in 1559. The second son of Francis I and Duchess Claude of Brittany, he became Dauphin of France upon the death of his elder bro ...

, personal secretary to

Catherine de' Medici Catherine de' Medici ( it, Caterina de' Medici, ; french: Catherine de Médicis, ; 13 April 1519 – 5 January 1589) was an Florentine noblewoman born into the Medici family. She was Queen of France from 1547 to 1559 by marriage to King ...

from 1549 to 1560, and subsequently Treasurer-General of

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. His book collection is considered second only to that of

Jean Grolier Jean may refer to: People * Jean (female given name) * Jean (male given name) * Jean (surname) Fictional characters * Jean Grey, a Marvel Comics character * Jean Valjean, fictional character in novel ''Les Misérables'' and its adaptations * Jean ...

, who is considered Mahieu's mentor and spiritual father. Mahieu and Grolier used similar Latin ownership inscriptions on their bindings. " Mahieu used the Latinized form of his name on bookplates, ''Maiolus'', which for centuries was mistaken for an Italian surname. It was not discovered until 1926 that Maiolus, the otherwise unattested supposed Italian, and Mahieu, the prominent French politician, were the same person. Today, about 120 books are ascribed to Mahieu.

Bindings

France had taken over from Italy as the center of artistic bookbinding during the early sixteenth century. Political upheaval in Italy, the Sack of Rome in 1527, the French occupation of Milan, and the

Franco-Ottoman alliance The Franco-Ottoman Alliance, also known as the Franco-Turkish Alliance, was an alliance established in 1536 between the King of France Francis I and the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire Suleiman I. The strategic and sometimes tactical alliance was o ...

had caused innovations such as gold tooling and the use of high-quality Morocco leather to reach to France, where they were swiftly embraced and refined. It has proved difficult to identify the binder(s) of many of the Mahieu books. In later years Mahieu favoured plainer styles of binding, but the earlier commissions are distincively rich: punched and gilded backgrounds show a surface of sprinkled dots as a foil for coloured interlacings and arabesques." The tools used by Mahieu's bookbinders have been analysed. The use of

trefoil A trefoil () is a graphic form composed of the outline of three overlapping rings, used in architecture and Christian symbolism, among other areas. The term is also applied to other symbols with a threefold shape. A similar shape with four rin ...

motifs suggested a common origin in a workshop that supplied bindings to Henry, Catherine, and Grolier, the so-called "atelier au trèfle" (meaning workshop of the trefoil). However, recent scholarship has thrown more light on the "atelier au trèfle" and the binders who worked for the royal family and Grolier, The

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

's bindings catalogue attributes one of Mahieu's bindings to Claude Picques and another to Gomar Estienne. The

Bibliothèque nationale de France The Bibliothèque nationale de France (, 'National Library of France'; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites known respectively as ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository ...

also credits these two royal binders with commissions for Mahieu. The last binding known to be due to Mahieu was manufactured in 1588.

References

External links

British Library Bookbindings Catalogue
- Search on "Mahieu" for images and catalogue entries for bindings owned by Mahieu, and others in the style {{DEFAULTSORT:Mahieu, Thomas French bibliophiles Year of death missing Politicians of the Ancien Régime in France 16th-century French people Year of birth uncertain