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Ill. 2: Visconti snake as watermark, based on Piccard Online
No. 043243
Middle Ages. Watermarks of city, dynasty and state heraldry
are included in this group as, for example, the Bourbon lily
or the Amsterdam coat of arms. These watermarks were
originally used as signs of origin or trade. Family heraldry, in
the sense of a “speaking coat of arms”, was also often
used as a watermark motif.
To conclude, in addition to the various aspects concerning
watermark motifs touched upon here, one must also
mention Piccard’s observation that they were usually anonymous.
In the early period, the primary function of watermarks
was not yet to indicate origin. Only after paper mills
became more numerous and they had spread did papermakers
find it necessary to use unique marks to identify
their products. Watermarks then became marks of quality
and developed further into signs of the producer and
trader.
When systematizing the image world of watermarks from
the Middle Ages, a biological/mythological order presents
itself with three main categories – people, animals, and
plants – to which one can add mythological figures such as
creatures from fables. One also finds watermarks depicting
other features of the natural world, depicting instruments
and tools, which can be subsumed under the category of
people, as well as heraldry and abstract symbols of geometry.
Alone the watermarks collected by Gerhard Piccard,
which number nearly 100.000, when ordered according to
their motifs present a broad classification scheme that includes
the world of the Middle Ages in all its natural forms:
from amoebas to human beings and their tools, from
leaves, flowers, and trees to mythological beings like unicorns
and mermaids, and even the abstract world of geometric
symbols (Ill. 1, p. 28). The watermarks are also always
representative of the producer or the papermaker,
whose personal background is expressed relatively clearly by
the motif chosen.
An example for the symbolic strength of these signs is the
scallop shell, which in the Middle Ages was originally used
as a symbol for the important pilgrimage to Santiago de
Compostela and soon came to represent a pilgrim as such.
From the 12 th century, representations of St. James portray
him carrying a scallop shell as his main attribute, in addition
to a pilgrim’s staff and bag. Watermarks combining a scallop
shell and pilgrim’s staff are evidence of their close con-
30
nection to the Santiago pilgrimage and the veneration of
St. James. In some cases, this relationship is even reflected
by the user or owner of the paper, as for example Count
Adolph of Nassau, who in 1479 used paper with scallop
shell watermarks (Ill. p. 29, based on Piccard Online No.
160170). In his family, the veneration of St. James traditionally
played a major role, which apparently was decisive in
his choice of writing paper.
Literature: Bannasch, Wasserzeichen als Datierungshilfen;
Jaffé, Zur Geschichte des Papiers; Maier, Spuren des
Jakobuskultes im Speyerer Raum; Piccard, Die Datierung des
Missale speciale; Piccard, Die Wasserzeichenforschung als
historische Hilfswissenschaft; Schweizer, Frühes Papier;
Tschudin, Der Ursprung der Haus- und Handelsmarken;
Tschudin, Grundzüge der Papiergeschichte; Weiß, Zeittafel
zur Papiergeschichte.
C.K. / P.R. (C.P.-K.)
III 1 The Mömpelgard Genealogy
1474
Libellus (parchment), 8 Sheets
Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart A 266 U 1
Page 10
The manuscript Wie Mümpelgard an die herrschaft Wirtemberg
khommen ist seems to have come from the library of
Count Eberhards im Bart, the grandson of Henriette von
Mömpelgard and the great-grandson of Antonia Visconti. It
describes the genealogical lines and family relationships of
the Count von Mömpelgard from the marriage of Eberhard
IV and Henriette before 1407. Of particular importance because
of its sumptuous coloured illustrations, it includes a
page that depicts the female line of Eberhards im Bart’s
family. The coat of arms of Antonia Visconti is seen in the
left row above the coat of arms of Maria von Châtillon.
Next to them are the coats of arms of his other two greatgrandmothers,
Katharina von Genf and Elisabeth von
Zollern-Nürnberg, above which are those of his grandmothers,
Henriette von Mömpelgard (on the left) und Mechthild
von Savoyen (on the right). At the top are the coats of arms
of his parents, Count Ludwig von Württemberg and
Mechthild von der Pfalz.
Here, the Visconti coat of arms is portrayed with a blue
snake facing right on a silver background, “half devouring
a Saracen”, as the accompanying heraldic description
reads. Numerous watermarks of 15 th century paper from
upper Italy present similar depictions of the Visconti coat of
arms. Obviously, the human figure that is half protruding
from the jaws of the snake, the “Saracen”, is easy to misinterpret
if one is not familiar with the Visconti heraldry, and
was not recognized as such by Gerhard Piccard in his watermark
tracings (cf. Ill. 2).
Literature: Rückert, Antonia Visconti.
P.R. (C.P.-K.)