Bull's Head and Mermaid - The Bernstein Project - Österreichische ...

uneven diameter in paper from as late as 1343/44. Here,
the chain-lines are hardly visible. In paper from 1347, he
was then able to distinguish prints of straight, quite thick
laid-lines running about 3 mm from each other. From this
point in time, paper moulds continued to be of this type.
About 1385 paper moulds with finer laid-lines running only
1.2 mm from each other were already in use. It is also possible
to clearly see the stitches used to attach the chainlines
to the cross pieces from around this time. This new
type of mould, with closer laid-lines, resulted in less fibre
pulp being needed and thus, among other things, the paper
being thinner. Paper historians have concluded that
these significant changes in the moulds are an outcome of
new techniques being used for making wire (Hills 90–91;
for wire pulling, Wolters 207–210).
Gerardy (Gerardy 64–65) has identified a special type of
mould used for Italian paper during the 14 th century that
was made with alternating thick and thin laid line. Such alternating
laid-lines can also be seen, for instance, in Codex
168 (dated 1390/91) of the Klosterneuburg Stiftsbibliothek.
Twenty alternating thick and thin laid-lines are about 29
mm in width (Ill. 293; Fig.A), whereas twenty thick laidlines
themselves, with thin lines between, is 58 mm. Within
this Klosterneuburger codex, however, one also finds paper
showing prints of only thin laid-lines (cf. the various watermarks
in the above-mentioned signature under http://www.
ksbm.oeaw.ac.at/wz/wzma.htm), and thus paper with
“mixed laid-lines” may have been a transitional form.
According to Weiß, twenty laid-lines had a width of between
16 and 80 mm depending on region and period. For
dated paper in the WZMA from the period between ap-
Ill. 19:
Fig.A: Klosterneuburg, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 168, Bl. 293 (1390/91).
Fig.B: Klosterneuburg, Stiftsarchiv, Rechnungsbuch 7/1, Bl. 27 (1343).
Fig.C: Klosterneuburg, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 69, Bl. 297 (Ende 15.Jahrhundert).
Fig.D: Klosterneuburg, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 1251, Bl. 6 (1330).
Illustrations reproduced 1:1
proximately 1350 and 1380, for “thick” laid-llines this
width (based on random samples) was between 45 and 55
mm (Fig.B). In contrast, in paper with “thin” laid-lines, seen
from the 1390s, this was reduced to less than 30 mm.
More research needs to be done on early paper, whose laid
line is generally difficult to see, in order to reconcile this
generally-held opinion of paper historians with Codex
1251, f. 6 (Fig.D) of the Klosterneuburg Stiftsbibliothek,
dated 1330, where twenty rather thin laid-lines have a
width of about 28 mm, and the Rechnungsbuch Rb 7/1,
Sheet 6 of the Klosterneuburg Stiftsarchiv dated 1321,
where the same number measure about 25 mm. According
to an examination undertaken by Ezio Ornato (Ornato, II
347) of Piccard’s collection, in the seven examples from the
1360s only “thick” wire was used. The percentage of paper
with “thick” laid-lines in comparison to paper where the
mould prints show “normal” wire had already sunk to
11.54% by the 1390s and then to 0.71% in the first
decade of the 15 th century, rising again later to about
1.40%. According to Ornato (II 74), the width of twenty
laid-lines in paper of folio format (rezzute) varied between
25/26 mm at the beginning of the 15 th century and below
20 mm by the end of the century (Fig.C).
Literature: Weiß, Handbuch der Wasserzeichenkunde;
Gerardy, Einige Besonderheiten von italienischen Papieren
des 14.Jahrhunderts; Hills, Early Italian Papermaking; Wolters,
Drahtherstellung im Mittelalter; Ornato et al., La carta
occidentale nel tardo medioevo I. Tomo II (Addenda 4).
F.L. (C.P.-K.)
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