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From Rags to Riches.

Authors :
Kittler, Juraj
Source :
Media History; Feb2015, Vol. 21 Issue 1, p8-22, 15p
Publication Year :
2015

Abstract

In the first four or five centuries of its manufacturing in Europe, paper was neither cheap nor available in unlimited quantities. Old rags, the primary material from which the paper was exclusively made, were a strategic commodity and trade with them was strictly regulated. Owing to their perpetual scarcity, as well as to the overall laboriousness of the papermaking process, a skilled master printer of the Incunabula period was hardly able to purchase a ream or two of high-quality paper for his monthly earnings. Consequently, the earliest printers had to rely on the support of ‘venture capitalists’ in order to secure steady supplies of paper. But the limitations of its manufacturing were not resolved by the end of the Incunabula period. Alas, the shortage and high cost of paper accompanied the development of print in Italy and elsewhere practically up until the advent of its industrial production from wooden pulp in the nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
13688804
Volume :
21
Issue :
1
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
Media History
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
100014902
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1080/13688804.2014.955840