Sized paper with watermarks
Papel encolado con gelatina y marca de agua
- Date
- c. 1280 · confidence low
- Place
- Fabriano, Italy
- Credited to
- Paper mills of Fabriano and northern Italy
- Field
- Matter & energy
What it is
Rag paper sized with animal gelatine, beaten with water-powered hammers and marked with watermarks, able to take ink without bleeding. A Fabriano innovation that, once widespread in the 15th–16th centuries, made mass publishing viable.
Fabriano had introduced the watermark and animal sizing as early as the late 13th century; their industrial spread came in the 15th–16th centuries.
What it led to
- A cheap, abundant supply for the printing press
- The identification of manufacturers and quality control through watermarks
- Large water-powered paper mills in France, Germany and the Netherlands
Built on
- Chinese and Arabic paper
- Hydraulic trip-hammer mill
Made possible
- Movable-type printing pressc. 1450
- Graphite pencilc. 1565
- European paper money (Stockholm, 1661)