Amalfi, built into a mountainside, is exceptionally picturesque: against a background of blue sky, houses dot the mountain, interspersed with flourishing terraced citrus groves. In medieval times the Amalfi valley was called the Valle dei Mulini, Valley of the Mills. A walk up the Via delle Cartiere brings you to the Cartiera Antonio Cavaliere, followed by the Museo della Carta, and finally the Cartiera F. Amatruda. Until forty or fifty years ago, the papermill street was an open waterway, and raw materials and bales of paper were carried by mule to the ships below in the port. Today the water is covered by the street. Climbing beyond the town, the road follows the stream, and one encounters vast structures in ruin. They are all papermills. On a thirty-minute hike one sees mills without roofs, their walls crumbling. Inside lies evidence of vats and beaters. I was told there are remnants of twenty-two mills in this valley. Located in rugged terrain without overland transportation ties to large cities, the Amalfi mills were left behind by industrialization and victimized by nature. Subject to a seasonally variable water supply anyway, they could not withstand periodic catastrophic floods, such as one in 1954 that destroyed thirteen of the sixteen mills then active. The merchants of the maritime republic of Amalfi had been trading with Sicily and with the Arabs in North Africa since the tenth century. By the twelfth century, paper was being used in Sicily. Lucio Amendola of the Amatruda mill says that paper production in Amalfi dates to around 1200: “The Amalfitani …traded with the Arabs…[and] understood the importance of this means of communication." Jose Imperato of the Museo della Carta also believes that papermills were established in the Valley of the Mills by the early 1200s. They exported their paper to the various kingdoms of the time. The Amalfitani believe the mills in the valley were the first in mainland Italy to make paper, although few documents are available. Emperor Frederick II, the King of Naples and Sicily in 1221, forbade the writing of official documents on paper, ordering that the more familiar and trusted parchment be used instead. A document dated 1268 mentions cotton bought to transform into reams of paper. (Cotton was a principal trade item for the Amalfitani, and cotton cloth mills were gradually converted into papermills.) Finally, a deed from the thirteenth century mentions stone vats along the Clarito River in Amalfi. Papermaking is substantiated in Amalfi by the late fourteenth century: a document of 1380 indicates a mill where cotton pulp and paper were made.  Museo della Carta The Museo della Carta (Museum of Paper), is located in the Nicola Milano mill, which dates back to the mid-thirteenth century. One enters a modern, airy addition with tile floors. Bookcases, housing an extensive collection of works on paper, encircle office computers. Nearby, a one-room exhibit offers vivid old photos of papermaking, several vitrines of mill artifacts, and a wooden press stacked with handmade paper to demonstrate its function. A window grate gives a glimpse of the mill below, where the authentic, antique machinery is housed. A small outdoor courtyard provides a view of the water that powers the machinery; it runs through a series of underground canals lying parallel to the stream and controlled by a system of locks. From there one descends into the old mill. Jose Imperato guided me through the lower chambers of the museum, first to the sixteenth century stamper, complete and appearing sturdy, but actually fragile and no longer operated. The old vat, dating from the fourteenth century, is lined with irreplaceable Majolica tiles. At the end of the room is an elevated platform which rather majestically supports the large Hollander (November 18th, 1745, the date of installation, is scratched in the wall plaster). The oak-and-metal roll is exposed, its housing placed off to the side. The Hollander was not operating when I visited in June 2001; the stone and concrete tub was in disrepair. A nineteenth-century papermaking machine—using a cylinder covered with metal screen to pick up pulp that is then passed through two felt-covered rollers—was also once used in the mill. Paper was hung on lines: long, smooth wooden poles were drilled with holes, then threaded with wire and suspended in the drying loft. Imperato explained the traditional division of labor for tasks after the sheets were formed and pressed: women hung and flattened the paper, while men did the heavy work, including wrapping, weighing, and transporting the paper to the port.  The ingenuity and intent of local people keeps this museum going in a tiny town with minimal resources. Imperato explained to me that the working mill was run by the owner, Nicola Milano (who, born in 1903, followed his father and grandfather into the mill at age 13) until its closing in 1969. In 1971 he gave the property to a foundation run by local governments, as a museum. The museum has created a cooperative of young people and has raised money for repairs, including a grant from the European Community. The foundation is called the Bambagina Cooperative (bambagina is an old Italian word for cotton), and is comprised of Jose Imperato and two associates, with another half dozen people working on the mill. Since my visit, I have heard that the mill has restored the papermaking machinery so that it is now “producing a beautiful sound of falling water and cylinders," according to staff member Margot Imperato. The museum has all that one interested in the paper history of Amalfi could hope for, a resource currently offered to school groups as well as foreign visitors by a gracious staff, genuine in their respect for the mill.  Amatruda The Amatruda family has lived in the same valley since at least 1198. Current owner Lucio Amendola describes the Amatruda ownership of the mill as documented to 1400, possibly even earlier. He hopes one or both of his teenage children will one day work at the mill and continue the tradition, which he married into. Cartiera Amatruda is the last mill in the valley engaged in large-scale commercial production. Amendola remarks about this continuity and his family’s contribution to the craft of his city: “…the proprietor (Luigi Amatruda), who died twenty or twenty-five years ago, spent all his life carrying a product that has the antique look using only slightly modern methods. …he sold his property to reinvest in this papermill… Now his daughters and his widow have given themselves a moral reason to continue this activity, not because they had financial need...but in memory of their father who had spent his whole existence in this activity.”  The historical memory of this valley and this industry continues. Amendola talked of the road that leads to the enormous, abandoned, crumbling mills that “decree the importance of Amalfi in paper production...the paper industry died in a certain sense...This papermill has remained active in upholding the Amalfi tradition, due to the stubbornness of my father-in-law, good soul, who was impassioned with paper.”  The ceiling of the old drying loft is hung with wooden poles and metal wires draped with paper, while the floors are stacked high with the mill’s inventory. From business cards, stationery, and envelopes to sheets measuring 70 cm x 100 cm, the handmade paper is formed as single sheets, never machine-cut. Ovens now accelerate the drying and, in addition to handmade paper, Amatruda uses a papermaking machine, which cuts the production cost per sheet by as much as 75-80%. Up until ten years ago papermaking machines like the first one at the mill, dating to about 1830-40, were used here. Amendola explained, “But the iron produced rust, the wood rotted, and then almost of our production was thrown away.” The machine was remade out of stainless steel.  Inside the mill a channel carries the river water used to make the paper. The water is filtered with a system of charcoal filters layered alternately with stone. Even though the water comes from a mountain stream, there are still impurities that need to be filtered out, including runoff from the lemon orchards above the town.  Old stone vats dating back to 1400, once used to ret the raw materials of paper production, sit in the oldest part of the mill. A press, three or four hundred years old and once used to express oil from olives, has been found useful for pressing paper. The lower story of the mill is original; the highest level, the drying loft, was built later.  One of my more sobering moments at the mill was spent in contemplation of the smoothing press. Driven by water power and gears, an enormous hammer was designed to pound repeatedly on a block of granite. By hand, a worker carefully moved the paper around on the block when the hammer was raised, so that the pounding would burnish the entire sheet. On the wall behind the smoothing press is a fresco from 1800, representing the holy protectors of the papermill. With the Madonna and Jesus are depicted Saint Andrew, the patron saint of the city of Amalfi, and Saint Nicholas, the protector of the guild of papermakers. A mould with two half-moons (an ancient watermark of Arab origin according to Amendola) and the words "Amatruda" and "Amalfi" is found in the small papermaking demonstration area. Amendola brought to our attention the antique tools and compared traditional and contemporary work conventions: “In olden times they did double shifts. At night, they went out with lanterns: the papermill was always active. Today we hold to normal hours, [as] established by law and we do a single shift.”  Cavaliere Meeting and interviewing Antonio Cavaliere fulfilled a desire I have had for some time: to meet one of the oldest (at nearly eighty) generation of papermakers, who has bridged history, and to speak with him in Italian. Signor Cavaliere finished school when he was eleven years old, then learned to be a mechanic and repair machinery. He married into a papermaking family and inherited his mill from his wife. The mill is housed in its original building and still has authentic, working antique machinery and equipment. Signor Cavaliere works in the mill, but not every day. He makes ten to fifteen sheets a day but admits “I am alone...First I worked with the whole family, now the children are married.” Yet to visualize him as the solitary person in the mill is not exactly accurate. On most of my visits to Signor Cavaliere, tourists looked in to view the mill, or a friend or family member came to converse with the papermaker. He demonstrated hand papermaking for me, and tried enthusiastically to remember every detail as I asked him about terms, methods, and techniques—sometimes points he had not thought about for years. He talked animatedly about the European papermakers who had visited him over the past two decades.  As a demonstration, he carefully spooned pulp into a divided mould with his right hand, placed some ferns on top, then dipped the mould to wash more pulp over the surface, fixing the plants in place. He couched these onto a curved stand. He had made watermarks and had worked at all of the paper mill tasks. He had used traditional sizing: “The true sizing is that made from animals, 'la canniccia.' I still have some scraps.”  Touring the mill's nooks and crannies felt like spelunking. Like the Milano mill, this space had a cave-like atmosphere, with low arched ceilings and irregular rooms. Signor Cavaliere explained how, with pipes, gears, and waterways, all the machinery linked together, from pulping to papermaking stages—millstone, holding vat, feeding vat, and papermaking machine.  He led the way through a narrow approach to an imposing water-powered assembly of millstone, vat, axle, and gears, dating from the early twentieth century. Called a “molazza,” it is now only used for processing the recycled paper he makes in winter. The pulp, when ready, follows a piped route into an enormous stone holding vat, which contains a tall, vertical wheel studded at the rim with cups. The rotating wheel picks up cupfuls of pulp and deposits them into a channel vat, which leads eventually to the papermaking machine in another room. Signor Cavaliere explained, “More or less pulp is sent to the vat according to the desired thickness [of the resulting paper]. I regulate how many cups to make use of.” In the adjacent, main room of the mill, are the vat and the papermaking machine, which are fed by the machinery. Water flows into the vat separately to dilute the pulp to the desired consistency. The continuously formed paper is pressed in the machine, then cut by hand and line-dried. Down some narrow stairs, in another anteroom, stands the centuries-old brick-and-limestone Hollander.  The drying loft is located in a tall building across the street from the mill, to take advantage of the breezy air. Although in the Amalfi mills they are iron, the hanging lines do not discolor the paper, because they are protected with a zinc coating that does not rust or stain. I mentioned the high humidity in my own city (Washington, D.C.), the lack of air movement there, and the need for a fan. “Artificial!” he pronounced.  I am moved to great admiration for the families and citizens of Amalfi who have assumed a role in the continuity of papermaking in their community. Attesting to their conviction: Luigi Amatruda’s decision to liquidate his property to maintain his family’s mill, the gift of Nicola Milano and the resourcefulness of the foundation to create and improve Amalfi’s Museum of Paper, and Antonio Cavaliere’s motivation to continue working in his craft, alone and at an advanced age. In every instance there is a passion, a commitment to operate at a level of quality and to represent the history of the craft. To be continued, in the Winter 2002 issue.
Contact and Travel Information To reach Amalfi, take a train from Naples to Salerno, then take a bus (get your ticket from the tabacchi stand in the train station) or taxi to Amalfi. You can also travel by Circumvesuviano (a commuter train), which will take you from Naples to Sorrento, then by bus or taxi to Amalfi. Only rent a car if you are an experienced rally driver. The Amalfi coastline is a celebrated drive but can be frightening to those uneasy with omnipresent hairpin curves, unrailed heights, and spirited drivers. Walk through the piazza to the main street of Amalfi and continue uphill. First you will come to the Cavaliere mill, on your left, with a small sign that says "Paper Mill" in three languages. Further on is the Museo della Carta, on the left. Beyond that, the Amatruda mill is on the right.  Cartiera Antonio Cavaliere; Via Fiume; 84011 Amalfi, (SA); Italy. Home phone 089 871954. If the door is open, the mill is open to visitors. English not spoken.  Museo della Carta; Via delle Cartiere, 23; 84011 Amalfi, (SA); Italy. Hours 10:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M., closed Mondays. Phone 0338 4435985, fax 089 872235, email info@museodellacarta.it. English spoken by Margot Imperato and other staff members. The foundation maintaining the museum: Bambagina Cooperative; Via Supportico Sant’Andrea, 15; 84011 Amalfi (SA); Italy. Cartiera F. Amatruda, telephone 089 87 13 15, hours Monday-Saturday 9:00 A.M. to 11:30 A.M., closed holidays. You must make an appointment to visit the Amatruda papermill museum. You cannot enter the premises of the actual factory. English not spoken.