CHARTA. - Writing material of Chinese invention; its manufacture, made with linen rags mixed with small quantities of hemp and cotton, was learned by the Arabs with the conquest of Turkestan (751). The Arabs imported it into Europe as early as the 9th century, but only in the 12th century did they begin to manufacture it in Spain (at Xàtiva, near Valencia); the ven. Peter, abbot of Cluny (1122-50), gives notice of it, saying it was made "ex rasuris veterum pannorum." In Italy, the paper mills of Fabriano were already in full development in the 13th century. In the Middle Ages the term "c. bambagina" (bambycina or bambycina) was often used, which until recent times led to belief in the existence of paper made of pure cotton in its raw state;
"bambagina" instead seems to have derived from Βαμβάκη,
a Greek transcription of the name of the Syrian city Mambidsch, today Edessa, where there was a famous paper mill
(J. Karabacek, Das arabische Papier, eine historisch-antiquarische Untersuchung, in Mittheilungen aus der Sammlung der Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer, II, Vienna 1887).
In the famous cave of Tun-huang, explored by Paul
Pelliot between 1906 and 1907, the most
ancient paper manuscripts so far known have been found, dating back
"to the 2nd century A.D., a few decades after the invention of
paper" (cf. G. Messina, Cristianesimo, buddhismo, manicheismo nell'Asia antica, Rome 1947, p. 17).
No European codices or documents on
paper earlier than the 12th century are known. It is known that in Sicily, before
1145, the Norman sovereigns often used paper, and a letter of Countess Adelaide of 1109 is known,
which is the most ancient European paper document
that has come down to us; from the Genoese notary Giovanni Scriba,
there is a register begun in 1154. But in the 13th century
Frederick II marks a reaction against the use of paper:
in 1231 he in fact ordered that parchment should be used for official acts and that documents
written on paper should not constitute evidence in court. With
the 14th century the use of paper becomes ever more general, until
it definitively prevailed.
A clear distinction must be made between the medieval age and
modern times in relation to the method of manufacture: paper, obtained in ancient times by hand-working, by spreading the pulp of macerated rags over a frame of metal wires, is today obtained by mechanical processes from a pulp of cellulose. Hand-made paper is used in modern times only for luxury copies: characteristic, in paper obtained by this process, are the deckle edges or lateral fringes, the chain lines and the laid lines, streaks visible in transparency owing to the diminished thickness of the pulp in correspondence with the metal wires of the frame. For makers' marks v. FILIGRANA.
Bibliography4 works
Carmelo Trasselli