>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington, D.C.
>> Pam Jackson: Hi.
I'm Pam Jackson.
I'm Director for the Center for the
Book, and we welcome you here today.
Thank you for joining
us for today's talk.
We're very excited about
what we have to share today.
I want to start by just
mentioning for some of you
who may not have been with
us recently that the Center
for the Book is part of the national
and international outreach unit
for the Library of Congress
where it's our mission
to share the treasures and
collections of the library
with the public and the
American people and the world.
And today we get to do just that.
This talk is -- the book
talks that we do for the books
and beyond series, which you're
a part of today are designed
to showcase work that has been
produced as a result of being part
of the research -- having done
the research here at the Library
of Congress, and we're very
excited about what we have to share
and that people are interested in
what we have and spend time with us
and in our rooms and in our
collections and on our shelves
and wherever else to
discover what we have.
I'd like to mention that as
part of that discovery process,
we really like to emphasize
that the Library of Congress has
as its mission to provide the
American people in the world
with a rich, diverse,
enduring source of knowledge.
It's designed to stimulate
intellectual
and scholarly and artistic
creativity.
That's our mission,
to share what we have.
And in doing so, we also
like to remind people
that we are America's
first cultural institution.
So a lot of times people forget that
we have a lot more than just books.
So we remind folks of that as well.
Here at the Center for the Book,
which includes the Young
Readers Center and Poetry
and Literature Center, we promote
books and reading, libraries
and literacy and literature
for the purpose of making sure
that people live in informed
and engaged societies.
We believe that literacy
mateters a lot to democracy
and we consider ourselves
defenders of democracy.
As part of our book promotion of
reading and literacy and literature,
we do these talks, but we also have
a couple of other things that we do
around the country including there's
a Center for the Book in every state
and some of the U.S. territories
and the District of Columbia.
And we're proud of that affiliation.
Each of those centers celebrate
their own state of regional heritage
and they're part of a
national network that's
about promoting a variety of
literary and literacy matters.
We're also at the Center for
the Book the administer --
administrator of the Library of
Congress Literacy Awards Program,
which is a very special and
phenomenal part of the Library
of Congress that allows us to honor
and recognize literacy
organizations around the world.
And we are currently in
an application process.
You can learn more about the program
and nominate a literacy organization
that you may be a part of.
Visit read.gov/literacyawards
for more information about that.
Now, let's turn to today's talk.
A couple of housekeeping items
I should mention that we do
like to ask at this time.
It's a small room.
We're going to enjoy a
really great conversation
so if you can take a
moment to make sure
that your electronic
devices are turned to silent.
That would be helpful for us.
We are recording today's event so if
you ask a question, you should know
that you'll become a
part of our webcast
and the webcasts are available
on our website at read.gov
and available there more than
250 talks of a variety of rich
and interesting people and topics.
Today's author will be
available after the presentation
to sign her book in the lobby,
which is available for sale.
We deeply encourage
you to obtain your copy
if you haven't already done so.
And I also want to mention that
today's special event is sponsored
with the Library of
Congress publishing division.
We enjoy a really great partnership
with Becky Clark and her team.
And we're very proud to be
part of the group to honor
and celebrate books
that are published
by the Library of Congress.
So today's author is
Sylvia Rogers Albro,
a senior paper conservator
here at the Library of Congress
where she works on the technical
examination of works on paper
from the library's
collections of rare materials.
She has spent time in Florence,
Italy where she first learned
about our conservation.
Sylvia first joined
the library staff
in 1984 as a paper conservator.
She graduated magna cum laude
from the University of Santa Clara
with a Bachelor's degree
in fine arts and Italian.
She received a Masters degree
in fine arts and a certificate
of advanced study in conservation
from the Cooperstown graduate
program and the conservation
of historic and artistic works at
the State University of New York.
She was also the library's
first staff [inaudible] fellow.
Congratulations on that.
So please welcome Sylvia
Rogers Albro.
[ Applause ]
>> Sylvia Rodgers Albro: Thank you,
Pam, for that kind introduction.
And I'd like to make some other
thank you's while I'm up here.
The publishing office for getting
this long time project finally
into paper, and that's Rebecca
Clark, the current head,
Susan Rayburn, the editor who
worked with me taking a rough text
and making it into something that
was greatly, greatly improved
and Peggy Wagner who was the first
to help me get the contract
signed for the book.
So I'd also like to thank my boss,
Elmer Yuseman and Holly Krueger
who have been very supportive of
this project over many, many years
and lastly, all of my colleagues
in conservation who have covered
for me all the times that I was
away working on this project
because the library's work goes on.
It does not stop.
And so I thank you for that.
I also encourage you to find
your own passion and pursue it
because I'll be the first one
to fill in while you're gone.
So, as a conservator of works
of art and manuscripts on paper
at the Library of Congress, its been
my privilege to work with papers
in the library's collections
that come from the far east,
across the Indian subcontinent,
the middle east, North Africa,
Europe and the new world
representing the path followed
by the craft of papermaking from
east to west which took place
over more than 1000 years.
The special qualities of early
handmade paper from Italy first came
to my attention in the early 90's
when an invitation to participate
in a new conservation school
established in [inaudible],
Italy in [inaudible] included a
field trip to the historical city
of [inaudible], and I
just want to mention
that the conservation
school was actually
in that old fort if
you can believe it.
For 12 years, my husband Tom
Albro [inaudible] conservator
and I were very lucky to be invited
to teach as guest instructors
at the school for two
weeks in the spring.
It was a wonderful period
of exchange between Italian
and European conservators and the
Library of Congress because many
of them came here to do
internships in our lab.
It was really a very
stimulating experience.
So, with this group, I went
on a number of field trips.
And one of them included a visit to
the historical city of [inaudible].
And a visit there is quite a thrill
for a paper conservator given the
continuous role the city has played
in the production of paper
in various forms for
more than 750 years.
And the city as you can see has
very much of a medieval flavor.
This is the town hall with
the [inaudible] tower.
It is in a seismic zone so a lot
of buildings have been
rebuilt over the years.
They've suffered recently from
earthquakes that you may have heard
about in the newspaper including
some of the paper establishments,
but they have successfully
rebult many times.
Papermaking is still very much a
thriving industry in [inaudible].
The leading consortium, the
Cartiere Miliani Fabriano,
is owned by the Fedrigoni
Group of [inaudible],
another famous papermaking
establishment.
And they have a great many
mills and employees in the area
and they've been highly successful.
Paper for the euro is produced
there and Fabriano experts
in watermarking have lent their
expertise to the [inaudible] company
in the U.S. for our paper used
to produce the U.S. dollar.
The mill complex and the museum
of paper in the watermark
in Fabriano both contain a rich
array of old papermaking equipment.
So here we see a collection of
historic molds, over 300 in number,
that date from the 18th
century to the present,
and they're in the
process of digitizing these
and making very detailed
examinations of them.
So some day they're going to
be helpful to us in our work.
One of the molds is
one that I selected
for actually the cover of my book.
It's not a particularly old
mold, but it's made in the style
of a 14th century mold
with lots of watermark.
And here is a restored piece of
an old stamping set that is part
of the collection of the paper
mill, and an old crest used
for papermaking that dates
back I think to the 1400's.
So handpapermaking is still
practiced in Fabriano,
both at the museum of paper
and watermark and at the mill,
and here is a master paper
maker, Robert Rafenati,
showing us how it's done.
So he's got the mold with
the [inaudible] on the top.
He's dipped it into the vad and is
lifting it out, draining the water.
He's shaking it slightly
to distribute the fiber
evenly across the mold.
He takes off the [inaudible] and
then the sheet is [inaudible]
on a curved set of felts.
Since we're going to
be talking about paper,
I just thought I would
review that for those of you
who have never seen hand
papermaking being done.
Public and private
libraries and archives
in the area are remarkable
repositories
of consecutive local records
on paper dating from the 1200's
such as here in the city archive.
Two important collections
of chronological paper samples
spanning 500 years and assembled
by the brothers, Aurelio
and Algusto Zonghi
in the 19th century are carefully
preserved in the city of Fabriano
and provide a catalog of
papers produced there.
Now, this is a collection of 300
sheets which is in the museum.
And when I was a [inaudible]
fellow, I spent two
or three weeks looking very, very
carefully at these paper samples,
and it was a great privilege and one
of my great memories
of this project.
But recently, a larger collection
that belongs to the brother
of Aurelio, Algusto Zonghe, whicih
was in private hands for many,
many years was purchased by
the foundation of the mill,
and they are looking at how
they're going to make that useful
to scholars and to the public,
and it's going to be digitized
at some point, and I've
been asked to participate
in that project which
is a great honor.
But that will add a great deal
of paper samples to
scholars references.
I've returned often to
Fabriano since those early 90's
to explore the history
of the city and its craft
and to examine its
wealth of material.
The book that I just published with
the library and with Oak Knoll Press
that I should acknowledge too
gives a background of history
of the industry and focuses
on the identification
of special collection items in
the Library of Congress made
with Fabriano paper including
manuscripts, printed books,
maps and artist [inaudible]
like the 16th century engraving
by Marco Dente in the Prints
and Photographs Division
with its attendant,
Fabriano watermark
of a crossbow with [inaudible].
Fabriano located in
a mountain valley
in the [inaudible] region
has ancient Roman roots,
and according to legend was
named after [inaudible],
a nobleman and property owner.
But it's interesting
to note the similarity
of the cities named the Latin word
for craftsman, which
was [inaudible].
Archeological remains
point to the presence
of accomplished iron workers
as far back as Roman times
and a carved stone
relief of a blacksmith
on the guild hall wall
memoralizes the city's motto
in labor [inaudible]
meaning in work find comfort.
This motto is translated into
watermark in the 15th century.
During the middle ages, a
number of factors came together
which encouraged the craft of
papermaking to flourish here.
A medieval industrial
revolution of sorts took place
in North Central Italy which among
other inventions the Roman water
wheel was adapted for
agricultural and craft practices.
Shaping the destiny of
this mountain region
with its abundant natural spings
and streamlining agricultural
production, providing opportunities
for artisans to develop
other skills.
The water wheel was
eventually harnessed for use
in papermaking as shown
here in this.
By the way, all the books
that I'm showing you are all
from the collections of the Library
of Congress unless I
specially say it isn't.
But here we see a water wheel
connected to a series of canals
and water systems here in
the parts of the water wheel.
This is from an 18th century book.
But the water wheels first appear
much earlier in this part of Italy.
A second important development
was the spread and influence
of the Benedictine
Monastic order in the area.
Aside from their literary
and spiritual focus,
monasteries were also
conduits for technical
and scientific information.
Their philosophy or their rule
of [speaking foreign
language] meaning manual work
and prayer outlines the life of
work and [inaudible] combined
and had a marked influence
on the city's own motto.
As the rule of St. Benedict
required a substantial commitment
to daily reading, Benedictines were
associated with books in libraries
since their beginnings
in the sixth century.
So it's not surprising that they
were involved in the fabrication
of both parchment and paper for
manuscript and book preparation,
and this is a library of one
of the still intact libraries
in the Monestery of Monte Fano
on the hilltop right outside
of Fabriano, which is open to
the public for consultation.
Benedictine monasteries
began to fluorish
in the [inaudible] region
during the tenth century.
Some of the earliest papers
produced in Fabriano are associated
with the Benedictine Monastery of
St. Vittore delle Chiuse shown here.
Built in the 11th century and
located on the road between Fabriano
and the port city of
[inaudible] on the Adriatic.
The architecture is said to have
marked middle eastern influences.
One of the earliest watermarks
present in the Zonghe collection
of papers from Fabriano has the form
of the Arabic symbol for infinity
and when visiting the
monastery first in 2009,
I found the same symbol carved into
the wall of the monastery here.
I should mention that the papers
of this monastery are now --
or many of the earliest ones are
in Princeton University Library.
They entered that collection
in the early 20th century,
but the [inaudible] from Montefano
came and did a lot of translations
and has written about them.
They're very interesting.
So mills powered by water
wheels were built in this area
in the 13th century in St. Vittore
delle Chiuse, and names present
in early 14th century records of
this monastery appear as watermarks
in paper made at the same time.
Other papers bear the
Benedictine orders familiar three
hills insignia.
The citation of the term
[speaking foreign language]
which means rag paper mill
appears in surviving early records
of monasteries in Fabriano which
leased their mills to workers
and remained closely affiliated
with the craft throughout
the following centuries.
So here we see the connection
between the early insignia.
This is the scene from the Life
of St. Silvestro in the Monastery
of Montefano outside of Fabriano.
And within the city walls are
still some remnants of early mills,
and this street was called
[speaking foreign language]
and for the longest time, I
wasn't able to get a picture,
a very good picture of this
building because there was
so much construction and repair work
after the last earthquake
about 15 years ago.
But the last time I went to
Fabriano finally it was all clear.
And these are examples of mills that
are illustrated here in this map
from geography [inaudible].
This wonderful atlas, a [inaudible]
atlas from the 17th century
that is cities of Italy and it has
wonderful illustration of Fabriano.
And in the legend, there are over
17 monasteries that are listed
as being present still within
the city walls at that time.
A factor critical to
Fabriano's future
in the craft industry was access
to both inland and sea routes
in the Mediterranean world of trade.
The town was connected
to the old Roman roads,
the [speaking foreign language]
and ports on the Adriatic Sea
which actively traded with the east.
While monasteries were involved
in the construction of mills
and sometimes in the making of
paper, the product was bought
and sold by merchants
as outlined in some
of the earliest surviving
manuscripts
in the Fabriano city archive.
And I find it interesting that
often the watermark of the paper
in these books is related to the
industry that it's talking about.
So in this case, we have spinning
wheel in the guild record book
of the [inaudible] guild.
The success of trade and the
acquisition of wealth gave merchants
and artisans in the town of
central Italy greater leverage
in their society.
And by the 13th century, Fabriano
city government had transformed
from a futilep system ruled by noble
families to a republican commune
with elected officials
from 12 established guilds.
And this is a re-renovated
façade of the cathedral,
but it still has the insignia
of the most important guilds
on the façade represented there.
The first recorded reference
to professional paper makers
in Fabriano is a notary's
register from 1282.
So it's amazing that some
of these record books,
they look a bit beat
up, but when you think
that they're 800 years
old, it's pretty impressive
that they're still around.
Look of the color of
that paper on the front.
That is just brilliant white still.
So in this book, eight paper makers
are cited at work in the town.
And inside this book, here is a
selection of some of the watermarks
that are present in the paper
in this book, and as it happens,
like the [inaudible]
that I showed you before,
these symbols are related
to early Arabic numbers
and also merchant shorthand script.
So by 1320 paper makers
had their own guild.
They began by operating as a
subsidiary of the wool guild,
but by 1320, they had a
representative on the own council.
Before rag paper was made in
Fabriano, it was known in Italy
as [speaking foreign language]
and the word [speaking
foreign language] derives
from the Syrian city of [inaudible]
which you've probably been reading
about in the news recently, and it
used to be a city of great trade
where paper was brought from
all locations and sent out.
And they were famous
for cotton cloth,
and the word for cotton is
[speaking foreign language]
in antique Italian.
And so [speaking foreign
language] was a literal translation
of cotton paper, although it wasn't
really made from cotton at the time.
Carta bambagina was coated
with rice or wheat starch paste
and highly polished with
stone to receive the ink
from a [inaudible] pen of a scribe
or the loaded watercolor
brush of an artist.
Important paper made using the
middle eastern technique can be
found in the 12th and
13th century archives
of many Italian maritime cities such
as [inaudible], Venica and Pisa.
And here's an example
that I uncovered
in the Siena city archives, which
has the features of carta bambagina
that was made also in
[inaudible], Spain.
And I want to point out this type
of watermark that's called a zig
zag watermark that is commonly found
in papers of this origin.
But also known is that there are
some worm holes in this paper.
This style of paper was
used and possibly even made
in Sicily and [inaudible].
Both areas with close ties to
the Arab world in the 1200's.
However, it was not adopted
for official uses in Italy
because of influential edicts issued
by the Roman emperor Frederick II
of Sicily who had been
convinced that paper sized
with starch deteriorated too quickly
to use for permanent records.
Not long after these
edicts were issued,
Pope Nicholas IV imposed an embargo
on imports from Islamic countries,
which prevented many foreign
goods from being brought
into the continental market.
So parchment remained the
most popular writing support
for religious and legal
documents throughout Italy.
The period of the papal embargo
coincides precisely with the time
that locally handmade paper began
to appear in earnest in Italy,
quite probably first in [inaudible].
While there are a number of
theories about how knowledge
of the papermaking craft
arrived in Fabriano,
I find the evidence most convincing
that the technology was passed
along the Benedictine monastic chain
beginning in [inaudible] and
southern Italy and moving upwards
and one of the reasons I think
that is a recent discovery
that I made just the last
time I went to Italy.
Unfortunately, this didn't
make it into the book.
But I had always heard
of this monastery outside
of [inaudible] called [inaudible]
and how it was a very important
place for early technology built
on old Roman ruins and a hybrid
of all sorts of different styles
of construction and craft practice.
And in that monastery library
is a manuscript dated 1250
which has both paper and I
don't know if you can see this,
but it has the zig zag mark here
and also a second kind of paper
that was made with a fixed wire
mold, and they're both present
in the same manuscript that those
from these dates 1259 to '64.
So it's write around
the time of the embargo.
And the fact that both Arab
style papers which were made
on a flexible mold of this
period and the fixed wire molds
of the later European
papers are found
in the same manuscript
indicates that both
of them were being used at the time.
So I think that's the beginning.
By the middle of the 13th century,
the merchant class and artisans
in the major cities
could read and write,
and there was a steadily
growing need for writing material
for every day use throughout
the Italian peninsula.
Literacy had become a necessity
given the rapid economic development
of the 13th century, and here
we have an early paper made
in Fabriano.
You can see how even the
casting of the sheet is
and once again the simple
watermark in the middle.
And this paper is made
on a mold that does not
yet have the wooden
supports that were added
to papermaking molds later.
So you don't see any shadows along
what we call the chain lines here.
But the condition of the paper is
still very good after all this time.
the astonishing quantity of trade,
church and government records
written on both paper and parchment
that survived from the 13th
century onwards in the archives
of even the smallest towns
in the Italian peninsula
today attest to this literacy.
Artisans in Fabriano had found a way
to imitate the carta bambagina
using three important technical
innovations that made it more widely
successful in the Italian market.
And they included the mechanization
of the [inaudible] preparation
process using water wheel powered
stampers as shown in this
illustration, a technology adapted
from the wool workers
fulling mill shown here.
And still used in Fabriano
until really mid 20th century.
This is a set of wooden stampers
that belonged to the paper mill
that are no longer in use but were
in use until not that long ago.
The second introduction
that Fabriano brought
to the papermaking industry
was sizing the papers
with gelatin rather then starch.
Gelatin, cheap gelatin,
was a byproduct
of the [inaudible] that
prepared parchment.
And in fact, early Fabriano papers
were very thick and heavily sized,
and it has the appearance
of parchment.
This would have been more
suitable for the quill pen used
by European scribes as opposed to
the read pen used in the Arab world.
The third introduction that
Fabriano claims responsibility
for is the introduction of
watermarks to identify the paper
as locally made and not imported.
The idea of marking one's
product was consistent
with other guild's practices
which required each member
to mark his product with an
individual symbol recorded
in an official guild book
such as this one in Fabriano
from the wool guild where symbols
display a marked similarity
to the watermarks in use at
the same time by paper makers.
You probably can make
these connections here
in the three guilds.
The foremost authority on laws in
the city states in the 14th century,
the notary Bartolo di
Sassoferrato wrote in a [inaudible]
in Fabriano there are many workshops
where they make a most
excellent paper
and each paper has its own
mark to identify its maker.
And since he was writing in the
1300's and he only cites Fabriano
in his reference to watermarks,
that's really the origin
of the association of the city
with the invention of watermarks.
So in addition to the fact that many
still exist there in their archives.
For a brief time, watermarks
appeared as full names
as I showed you before of the maker.
But soon after, assumed the
imaginative shapes of tools,
weapons, animals and
religious symbols much
like other insignia of the time.
The presence of papers with
known fabriano watermarks
of the 14th century in archives in
many different locations in Europe
and the Mediterranean proves
its widespread use by that time.
The paper was successful
because it was not only strong
but also handsome in appearance.
And this had to do with the
careful selection of rags
for making the [inaudible].
This part of Italy was also
known for its cloth making.
Paper was made of three different
qualities at the beginning,
nd the names Bona, Fioretto
and Miglioramento came
from the different
categories of rags.
Carta Grossa was the
name for wrapping paper.
So these were the first
categories of papers made.
Most of the rags used to make
early Italian paper came from worn
out garments, ship sails and
ropes or household linens.
These are new and not rags, but
they're early examples of the kind
of fabrics that this part of Italy,
Perugia in this case, is famous for.
And these were made from
hemp and linen mixtures.
[Inaudible] hemp was widely
grown in the Italian peninsula
up until the 1950's and
used for cloth making.
La Canapa [inaudible] variety of
hemp cultivated in calcium rich soil
like that in many parts of Italy
produced an inner plant fiber used
for making cloth which
was light in color
and subsequently a paper
that was creamy white.
La Canapa's plant long fibers gave
the paper strength and flexibility,
a desirable feature for
books and manuscripts.
In addition to the
raw materials used,
the mill water source
was extremely important
in determining the
quality of the paper.
The natural spring water
in the [inaudible] area
of Italy has a high content of
alkaline earth, especially calcium.
Water samples from the old mill
in springtime were collected
and analyzed and found to contain
large quantities of calcium
and very little iron,
copper or sulfur.
So -- and you can see here limestone
cliffs above where the monastery
of St. Vittore delle Chiuse
was which fed the water streams
that ran the water wheel that then
stamped the fiber, made the paper.
Some analysis done by preservation
research and testing scientist,
Lynn Brostoff of the Library
of Congress identified --
on [inaudible] with identified
Fabriano watermarks showed
remarkably high concentrations
of calcium in the paper.
So the water that was used
for repeatedly washing cloths,
rags and [inaudible] was essentially
passing through marble chips
in the river bed and
resulted in the formation
of calcium carbonate interspersed
within the felted paper
fibers upon drying.
The quantities of calcium --
I'm sure this is hard to read --
but they were really remarkable
and in the case of this book
that Lynn is analyzing here
which is a [inaudible] book
from the Rosenwald collection.
There were 60 ratio of calcium to
iron in the paper could be as high
as 62 to 1, which is extremely high.
Or no, I guess there's
one with 72 to 1.
So there is also some indication
from these high quantities
of calcium that lyme had been added
to the pulp during the
papermaking process.
This is what the [inaudible]
book looks like in regular light.
I wanted to mention -- I should
have mentioned this at the beginning
that after this presentation,
Stephanie Stilo [assumed spelling],
the Rosenwald curator, has very
kindly agreed to put out some
of the books that I'm going to
talk about in the Rosenwald room
for those who have a chance to go
over to the Jefferson
building and look at them.
The mills in Fabriano
where paper was made
and sized were located outside
the city along the river,
but the task of polishing,
folding and packaging it was given
to other specialists located in
workshops inside the city wall.
This well known apothecary stone
from 14th century Bologna depicts
mold sizes of imperial, royal,
[inaudible] which became
the standard sizes used
in Italy and later in Europe.
Perhaps it's not as well known
that the same terminology was found
in even earlier merchant
records from Fabriano.
And many of these early
Italian terms are the foundation
of English technical terms
for papermaking as well.
They don't always mean
exactly the same thing,
but here's some really common
foglio and folio, feltri, risma.
So in the book that I published,
there is also a glossary
of Italian terms in
their translation.
High quality paper was
mass produced in Fabriano
and merchants were connected to a
wide network of trading partners
within their region who
brought it to the attention
of an ever widening territory
including medieval fairs
and many cities of Europe.
Paper made in the 15th
century was much improved
from its beginning product
and it's growing reputation
at the time was well deserved.
Documents in archives of important
cities like Siena and Parma attest
to the fact that Fabriano paper was
"distinguished by its whiteness."
In the beginning, the cost of a
sheet of paper was 1/4 the cost
of a skin of parchment,
but by the 15th century,
25 sheets of paper could be
purchased for the price of one skin.
So just to summarize the reasons
for Fabriano's early success
in the paper industry.
We've talked about
monastic connections,
abundant natural resources,
engineering, craftsmanship.
The elected representative
government which was very important,
literate population and the
established merchant networks.
Commercial record books
beginning in the 14th century
from Fabriano lists quantities
of paper exported to a variety
of far away destinations.
And I want to bring up --
just draw your attention
to the merchant's insignia which
is listed on the page of this book
in addition to the watermark
that you see because for all
of the transactions in these books,
the symbol of the merchant
always accompanies them,
the buyer and the seller.
Often the type of paper is
listedin these record books
by size, quality and watermark.
Exports increase in the next century
and the names of paper makers
and merchants reappear
again and again
over time indicating
families remained active
in the profession for
many generations.
So this Ambrogio de
Bonaventura was a descendent
of that original [inaudible]
name that was in one
of the earliest papers that I
showed you, and so Bonaventura was
under [inaudible] and Ambrogio
was son of Benaventura,
and then Lodovico d'Ambrogio
shown in this painting
by Gentile de Fabriano is a paper
merchant and here you can see
that his symbol is included with
his portrait in this painting.
Gentile de Fabriano
is the most famous
of the Fabriano School of Art.
But another artist
of great interest,
[inaudible] who has
a wonderful painting
in the national gallery here in
Washington, his records indicated
that seasonal workers in paper
also worked as apprentices
in the artist's workshop.
So the same names of
people who worked
in the paper industry were
also associated sometimes
with artist's workshops.
The widening availability
of good quality paper
in Italy encouraged the growth
of the printing industry,
enabling many individuals to read
and own books given that the cost
of a printed book to the
consumer was perhaps 1/5
that of a handwritten manuscript.
It's estimated that more than 80
presses were operating in Italy
in the late 1400's and
that's the largest quantity
of any European country.
Of course, the demand for paper grew
exponentially with the introduction
of printing and despite repeated
guild prohibitions issued
in Fabriano against the
dissemination of trade secrets
to other locations, the technology
spread through the mobility
of craftsman who were recruited
to other cities who were centers
of printing such as Venice
and Florence and Naples
and northern cities as well.
Nevertheless, in examining
books and prints of high value
and prestige made in the
first century of printing,
it's clear that paper from
Fabriano is still very much prized.
Written records also confirm
that certain printers preferred
Fabriano paper for their works,
especially prized was paper
made in large dimensions.
And this is a wonderful book
about husbandry and agriculture
and it is open to a page
that's about all kinds
of different [inaudible] and
the book is just wonderful
because even though it's 1478,
the Italian is Florentine Italian
and the type is very, very legible
so you can read this and learn
about how -- their advice for the
best way of growing a [inaudible]
or other yeah, and keep in mind this
watermark of the [inaudible] there.
So there's a lot more history to be
covered, and I can't do 750 years
in one lunchtime lecture.
So -- but I have to mention one
thing that I know Susan might --
Susan, my editor would be very
disappointed if I didn't mention,
and that is that there were some
ups and downs in the industry
and a real downer was -- happened
in 1435 when a particular family
that was very influential, the
Chiavelli's who were very involved
in the wool industry and
also in the paper industry
and owned a lot of mills.
In fact, there are many waterks with
keys as their symbol, and Chiavelli,
the word is very close to
the word for keys in Italian.
But apparently they became
too big for their britches
because there was a
conspiracy against them.
And in this choir stall 14
conspirators hid in the cathedral
with weapons under their clothing
and in the middle of the mass,
they got up and attacked all of the
mail members of the Chiavelli family
who were the patrons
of the cathedral,
and that was the end of them.
So in fact they had to get
permission from the pope
to let the poor women of
the Chiavelli family escape
and these kinds of things
were not unusual in that time.
I mean, everyone knows about the
[inaudible] conspiracy in Florence
but even smaller towns like
Fabriano had their episodes.
And this fire stall had to
be moved from the cathedral.
It's in another cathedral now.
But I just had to show
a picture of it.
And even though the book
is entitled Medieval
and Renaissance Papermaking,
I just wanted to mention
that I have a chapter
about the 18th century
because this very important figure,
Pietro Miliani, is responsible
for the regeneration
of the industry.
After the Chiavelli massacre, there
were a lot of political rivalries
and there were definitely ups
and downs in the industry,
although it has been maintained
continuously from the 1200's.
But Pietro Miliani who was the paper
maker who made some of the papers
for [inaudible] prints, for
example, was a very important figure
for the renovation of --
and resurgence of papermaking
from the 18th century forward.
And his family continued
the tradition.
They died out, but
now it's interesting
that the [inaudible] family
has taken over the mill
and it's thriving under that name.
Another interesting thing about
Pietro Miliani is he is one
of the first paper makers to
introduce wove paper in Italy.
Although their technology was
very advanced in the medieval
and renaissance period, they
kind of fell behind the Dutch
and the English in the 17th and
18th century with their innovations
and the English wove paper
which had very little texture
and was really preferred by
print makers and many artists,
remained elusive to Italian
paper makers for quite some time
until Pietro Miliano and people
of his generation were able
to develop the molds that
produced this kind of paper.
And fortunately here at the
library, we have wonderful examples
of his paper in the
[inaudible] patterns and also
in the wove patterns that
he developed afterwards.
So let's look at some other items
from the library's collections
that I was able to
find that were related
to Fabriano and his papermaking.
The earliest ones are two
manuscripts interestingly enough.
One is [inaudible]
and one is Arabic.
And this is a copy of a
Responsa from the famous rabbi,
Solomon ben Abraham
ibn Adret of Barcelona,
and it contains a watermark of
an eagle which is the same as one
that I found in the archives of
Fabriano from the same date as this.
And in this case, this
is an Arabic manuscript.
It's a pharmaceutical text and
it has this watermark here.
It's called a key, but it has an
interesting resemblance I think also
to a [inaudible] or
even a [inaudible].
So I don't know.
Because some of the other
watermarks related that were done
at this time are related to
the content of the information
of the book, it would be interesting
to see what other historians
think about that.
But this is another book where half
of the paper was actually
European paper and half
of the paper was Arabic style.
Here we're looking at an early
book of Dante that was printed
in Florence in 1481 and it's an
early example of an illustrated book
and that's why there are
two copies in the library.
One is in Rosenwald and one is in
I think the [inaudible] collection.
And so you can see here that these
prints were included in the text.
This was a very expensive
enterprise that was --
because this paper is actually
imperial size, it's very large
and it was a very deluxe edition
that was put together by a group
of humanists in Florence who
wanted to include a commentary
on Dante's divine comedy by one
of their famous philosphers.
And it was an attempt to kind
of reclaim Dante as a man
of their city this
particular deluxe version.
And it needed a lot of
money to pay for the paper
but also the many artists and
print makers who worked on it.
And you can see once again we have
this paper with the [inaudible].
So it would be much more interesting
to look at this book in person.
So I'll go through this quickly,
but obviously they have a little bit
of trouble printing the copper
plates in with the type set.
The print -- the typographer
printed the text first
and left the blank pages where the
illustrations were supposed to go.
And these illustrations
were made by [inaudible]
who was an early engraver working
in Florence, and they were inspired
by drawings that had been done by
[inaudible] and so here you can see
that he had trouble
with the registration
when he printed the
plate on the paper,
and you can see the plate
mark from the back here
on this particular image.
So later they decided that
maybe that wasn't going
to work out terribly well.
Since they seem to
have a lot of time
because although the typographer
did his part doing the prints
and finding the drawings to
do the prints after seemed
to take much longer time.
So in the case of the
following illustrations,
they printed them separately
on paper
and then pasted them into the book.
And I'm just showing you
here a sample from one
of the Zonghi collection of the
larger collection that I looked
at that had a lot of
imperial size paper in it.
And once again, I just draw your
attention to how white it is.
And someone at some point had
outlined the watermark in the paper.
Not me. But here's the whole
sheet in transmitted light.
You can see the size
of the watermark,
and that is the exact same
paper used in the production
of that Dante book that
was printed in Florence.
So that was an exciting match.
Atlases are also a great source of
Fabriano paper and that's partly
because they required large
sheets and sheets of good quality
and so this [inaudible]
watermark is a very popular one
for the oversized sheets that
were produced in Fabriano
and we have I think the largest
collection of [inaudible] atlases
in maybe the U.S., many of
which were printed in Italy
and some printed in Rome.
And I think that using the
watermarks to date the making
of the maps would be very useful
because sometimes the same paper
was used for many different editions
of these volumes, and it
certainly would be a good project.
I found them often to
have Fabriano paper.
This is a manuscript from
the manuscript division.
It's called the Amoretti Codex
after the owner of the codex
who is a Roman priest, but it's
actually a copy of a letter written
by Amerigo Vespucci after his
voyages in the new world and it's
on a paper that has the same hunting
horn watermark that we saw earlier.
And this is a very important piece
because the original has been lost
and so we have a copy of this
that is a contemporary copy
and once again, the watermark
can help date the time,
at least it can tell you that
the item was not done before a
certain time.
It can't necessarily tell you
how late it is, but anyway.
Of course, some of the
earliest printed books
in italy were religious text
and this Bible that was printed
in Naples was also
on oversized paper.
And it's about 450 pages.
It's a [inaudible]
Bible,and many of the papers
in it are Fabriano including
this well known watermark.
It's maybe a little bit hard to
see here but here is the same paper
that was present in
the Fabriano archives.
That same shear patter, which
since there was a very active wool
industry and there was probably
a lot of shearing of sheep,
it was a symbol that comes
from the local industry.
It was interesting to me that
this particular book was printed
in four different cities
at the same time in Naples,
Florence, Rome and Venice.
This book that is by [inaudible]
on great men of ancient Rome
and all four versions of the book --
they weren't printed the same year,
but they were printed within
15 years of each other,
and they were all on Fabriano paper.
Different watermarks but
all from the same source.
An important printer to
mention who is often associated
with Fabriano papers is the printer
Gershom Sancino who immigrated
to Italy from Germany and settled in
the [inaudible] region for a while
and did quite a bit
of printing there both
in Hebrew [inaudible]
type and in Roman type.
He's very celebrated there.
There's a street named after him
and in the archive, there's a list
of the receipts for the paper that
he purchased for Fabriano for many
of these volumes, and he's still
well known for the way that he laid
out the page in this beautiful
pattern and here's the original text
and the commentary around
it, and I understand
that even contemporary
[inaudible] that are used
in services have still retained some
of his same original
typography pattern.
He was not always able to
use the finest quality paper
for his Hebrew text, but he did
as I say also print on commission.
He printed the statutes
of the city of [inaudible]
and he also printed this
cardinal's book and in this case,
he was able to use
the expensive paper.
Many other objects in the
library were found that were made
on Fabriano paper including
a lot of fine prints here,
this [inaudible] print by Ugo
de Carpi along with a number
of other prints from the
Pembrook album [inaudible]
and this is another important
symbol associated with Fabriano.
It's a ladder and there was the
Scala family who was very involved
in papermaking and [speaking
foreign language] means ladder
and also [speaking
foreign language].
In this case, we had [speaking
foreign language] and Scala family.
They probably owned the mill
that used this watermark.
And another very lovely
print by Domenico Beccafumi,
another chiaroscuro woodcut.
He was an artist from Siena and
although Siena also made paper,
their industry was begun
by Fabriano craftsmen
and they still imported the
oversized fine quality paper
from Fabriano.
I think artists also liked it
because it was quite substantial.
And if you have to put
your print as in this case
through the press several times,
in this case at least twice,
you have to have a paper that's
strong enough to withstand that.
Now for paper conservators who are
here, this is an important slide
for telling you how you can
identify Fabriano paper even
if you are not sure
about the watermark.
Their mold style was
such that the watermark
after about 1350 was always
in between two chain lines
with a chain line in the middle
that was called the
supplemental chain line
or the [speaking foreign language].
But you can't really
see very well here,
but it didn't have a
wooden support behind it.
In the case of this paper,
this paper was made with a mold
that had wooden supports
behind each chain line.
But you see where the watermark is,
it was actually a chain line there,
but there's no wooden
support behind it.
And that's a clue that the
paper was made certainly
in the mold style of Fabriano.
You have to find an exact match
of the watermark itself also
because papers were copied.
But this is an important
feature to know.
The Zonghi collection that's in
the museum has been published,
but it was a contraband publication
where the tracings were stolen
out of Italy by the person
who had done them and sold
to a Dutch paper historian,
and they were published
by the Hilversom Society
in the 1950's,
but it's still a very,
very useful book.
The unfortunate thing about this
book is that unlike [inaudible]
for those of you who
are paper historians,
it doesn't give you the exact
manuscript that each one
of these watermarks
is associated with.
So you just have to trust that
the date that they're giving you
in the book is the real one.
But with the new acquisition of
the larger collection by the mill,
the registry book that is
associated with every single one
of these papers was also
part of the collection.
So now there's going to be a lot
more information for historians
to date papers by these
watermarks, and the digital versions
of them will give you more
information about the paper itself.
So while this book is still useful,
just pay attention to what's coming
in the future because
it will be an addition.
So here's a watermark from
that second collection,
and some people have asked me okay,
well so you spent all this time
on medieval and renaissance
paper, what is your next chapter?
Are you going to stick
with Fabriano?
And one thing that really interests
me is 20th century papers made
in Fabriano and their use by
artists in America as well all
over the world, and this is a
wonderful drawing by Georg O'Keefe
in the Milwaukee Art Museum
that has a [inaudible] watermark
that you can see even
through the frame.
So I'd like to explore the use
of more modern Fabriano papers
by artists working today.
So, thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
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