Collectors who examine enough auction or booksellers' catalogs are likely to encounter the occasional, usually expensive, title clothed in a fanfare binding. This type of binding generally elicits one of two responses in most book collectors -- either they absolutely adore it, or they absolutely hate it:
The fanfare binding above, which features a central panel with the arms of James I, is via the Princeton University Library. It clothes a 1601 edition of Roberto Francesco Romolo Bellarmino's Disputationes. (This Italian Jesuit and Cardinal was one of the most important figures of the Counter-Reformation. He was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1930 and is considered the patron saint of catechists.)
As ODLIS points out, fanfare binding
...developed in France during the late 16th and early 17th centuries, featuring interlaced ribbons dividing nearly the entire surface of the covered boards into compartments of various shapes, each filled with small tooled foliate designs, except for the compartment in the center.... {T]he interlace was typically bounded by a single line on one side and a double line on the other....
It is the sheer exuberance and near-totality of the tooling that either attracts, or repels, most book collectors. The example below, also via Princeton University Library, is found on a 1602 Estienne edition of Euripides' Works:
Yet another example, by way of The British Library, is this tooled à la fanfare goatskin binding on a 1667 edition of Dendrologiae naturalis scilicet arborum historiae, the last published work of the so-called Father of Natural History, Ulisse Aldrovandi. (Like most of Aldrovandi's numerous books, this title was published posthumously):
Image copyright © The British Library Board
Fanfare bindings may be either open or closed (aka filled). This refers to how dense the tooling is in each of the various compartments on the binding. In the example below, the closed or filled fanfare binding is on your left, the open fanfare binding on your right:
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