Blue Paper: The Overlooked History of a Drawing, Printing and Writing Material 1400-1600 [Paperback]

This book studies the early modern phenomenon of the increasing production and consumption of blue-hued paper, a material used widely in Italy as a drawing, writing and printing support as well as an ephemeral wrapping.

This book studies the early modern phenomenon of the increasing production and consumption of blue-hued paper, a material used widely in Italy as a drawing, writing and printing support as well as an ephemeral wrapping. Until recently researchers overlooked blue paper as an object of curiosity and worthy of study, often judging that, because of its assumed less refined fabrication and mottled color compared to the finest contemporary white papers, it was a poor-quality product of lowly function and no particular interest. Close looking, a method of visual examination used regularly by a wide range of professional disciplines, is used here to examine a selection of surviving paper artifacts from the period c.1400-c.1600. Combined with a reconsideration of the extant documentary sources and placed in a broad historically-based synchronic context, this book presents new information and interpretations to enrich the nascent blue paper corpus.Foreword Acknowledgements Chapter 1 Sources and methods ‘Another book on the Italian Renaissance?’ Why blue? Limitations of written and illustrated sources Examination of original artefacts Close looking Desiderata Chapter 2 Early modern European blue papermaking: fibres and colorants The main constituents of early modern blue papers Fibres Hemp Flax/linen Cotton Wool Silk Colorants Woad Indigo Woad, indigo and indigotin blue Chapter 3 Making and distinguishing early modern blue papers Water Mills making coloured paper Organisational systems Rags Recycled textiles Ships’ sails Ropes Recycled (waste) paper New textiles The procurement of papermaking rags Quantities Rag sorting How paper became blue: fabrication of blue paper sheets Prepared blue paper Paper dyed blue in the vat or afterlÃz