For this special issue devoted to papermaking in Italy, guest editor Lynn Sures rounded up an array of perspectives from Italian artists, scholars, academics, and artisans. The authors demonstrate their strong cultural heritage, with an eye to the relevance of papermaking as a living practice. It is exciting to imagine its future through the stories we see here. For our Italian readers, we will be offering the original manuscripts, in the Italian language, on our website.

Franco Mariani writes in his intimate manner on the history of Italian papermaking, a subject he thinks about in a personal, human way—what might it have been like to witness it?

Giorgio Pellegrini writes about the richness of the field and how to dive in and experience it in various interactive museum locales along the paper road, across Italy.

Giuseppe Amendola Amatruda follows a centuries-long family tradition of working in the papermaking industry in Amalfi, and tells a tale of his family mill.

Annarita Librari writes about the history and tradition of light-and-shade watermarks, from the vantage point of a family-trained practitioner of this rare art form.

We look at papermaking education through the eyes of Sandro Tiberi, master papermaker trained at the Miliani mill. Tiberi has used his dimensional texture process to provide two separate samples in this issue.

Noted artist Angela Occhipinti compares four artists who are bound by a passion for printmaking on paper, all driven by their artistic goals that are ultimately enabled by paper.

Roberto Mannino introduces fabrianese master papermaker Luigi Mecella who is both a stalwart of a museum’s papermill and an artisan drawing on traditional sources in his own practice. Mecella provides a sample of his multi-use artist’s paper.

The skilled paper and book conservator Gabriele Dondi is interviewed in his fascinating Urbino laboratory by Giorgio Pellegrini.

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