Today, there are a variety of machine-made paper in various colors, shapes and strengths. Go to Slayer for more information. Less and less is however handmade original – paper. The most emotional messages deserve to be immortalized on fine handmade paper.” Jacques Frese origin and history of the handmade paper is the origin of papermaking in China. Already in the 2nd century BC, there are reports that prove this. The Mandarin Tsai Lun considered the inventor of papermaking.
Chinese merchants and missionaries have been then this knowledge in the neighbouring countries and so the production was then taken over by paper in the 7th and 8th century also by the Japanese and other neighbouring countries of China’s. Muslims who were in the 8th century in Asia, learned papermaking there. They brought this achievement to Syria, the Iraq, after Egypt, to North Africa and Spain, where the first paper mills in Europe were built. Thus passed away almost a thousand years, until the paper production in Europe was known. In Italy is proven for the first time in the 11th century the use of paper can be assigned.
The Italian city of Amalfi was one of the first cities in Europe, which produced hand-made paper. It has been used for the public documents of the Royal chanceries. Rags were used as raw material for the almalfitanische paper. That’s why it was called there including rag paper ‘. The rag was crushed, in stone vessels with water-powered hammers or mortars as long as mashed up everything in individual fibers was crushed. This mass was then filled in stirring deckle. A frame with a fine metal mesh has been immersed in this as a sort of sieve. The fibre paste was it evenly so that was a fine, thin layer on the surface of the screen. That water has been poured and the paper manufacturer embedded the thin layer between two sheets of felt.