It was Mozart’s favourite. Lord Byron, Oscar Wilde and Stendhal have written on it. And great artists have drawn on it as it has been used for special editions of literary masterpieces or for the reproduction masterpieces of art.
In its nine centuries of known story, the Bambigena Paper has been appreciated for its unique characteristics. And from Amalfi it has become famous all over the world, still considered today among the excellences of “Made in Italy”.
The oldest document in Amalfi paper dates back to 1231, signed by Emperor Frederik II, who precisely with that paper, forbade the use of it for official documents, preferring parchment, because it was considered long-lasting. Time has denied it, bringing up to our days centuries-old specimens of Bambigena Paper, which continued to be used for both the private documents and for all the public ones by the States of Southern Italy during Angevin, Aragonese, Viceroyalty and Bourbon periods and by the ecclesiastical institutions. Meanwhile, in Amalfi the number of paper mills increased, producing according to the ancient technique learnt by the Arabs, who, after having borrowed it from the Chinese, had been using it since the 10th century. And sailors from Amalfi, who with the Arabs had, at that time, extensive exchanges and frequentations in the ports of Sicily and Egypt, were the first Europeans to learn the secrets of paper, transferring them to their homeland.
The heart of Amalfi production was in Valle dei Mulini (Valley of Mills), the final part of Valle delle Ferriere, precisely above the sea. There, loads of rags or white linen, hemps and cotton arrived, partly imported from Naples, and were then cut, frayed and soaked to macerate, to be sent to the processing stage done with the mills, powered by the water of the Canneto stream. The mills moved big studded hammers with which the cloth was reduced in pulp, which was then transferred to vats covered with majolica. The shapes with wooden edges and a central filigree of brass or bronze strands with the papermakers' brands were dropped into the vats. The shapes captured the solid parts of the pulp and this first version of the sheet was placed on a wool felt, the “pontone”. A pile of wet sheets alternated to felts was formed and then pressed. At that point, the felts were separated from the sheets, which were transformed into “spandituri”, rooms with ample windows to circulate the air and dry naturally the sheets of paper, which were then taken to the “allisciaturo”, for the final ironing. Everything by hand, with a slow processing and a production necessarily limited. At least until the eighteenth century, when the “Hollander Machines” arrived in Amalfi, equipped with cylinders with watermarks, which increased the production, and a pre-drying of the sheets with a steam boiler was also introduced. At that time, there were eleven paper mills and the number increased, even when the industrial production was now widespread in Europe. The flood of 1954 put an end to the paper economy in Amalfi, which destroyed all the paper mills except three: the Francesco Imperato’s one, who closed it and moved to Palermo, the Milano’s and the Amatruda’s one, which is still operating and keeps alive the tradition of Bambagina, handcrafted sheet by sheet, with a very high quality recognised worldwide.
The Milano, instead, transformed their paper mill in the centre of Amalfi into the Paper Museum (Museo della Carta), with the original machinery of the 13th century and the Hollander machine installed in 1745, all restored and perfectly functional, to show live to visitors the different processing steps. A large exhibition of ancient objects and paper products and a specialised library of over three thousand volumes and documents complete the museum.
