The Pescia Paper Museum

The Pescia Paper Museum (Museo della Carta di Pescia) has its historical headquarters in the ancient 'Le Carte' paper mill built around the beginning of the 18th century. The paper factory represents how paper was typically manufactured since the Middle Ages.

It was centrally located in the 'paper district' of the Pescia river. Tools and machinery used in paper production are still preserved inside the factory. Watermarked paper produced by 'Le Carte' had the historical reputation of being some of the most high-quality paper until the 18th Century.

Since 2008 the museum has worked extensively on recovering and preserving its collections, which include all the traditional tools used in the hand production of paper: watermarked moulds, waxes, stamps, watermarked metallic cloths and watermarked sheets. The museum was the first to catalogue paper goods in Italy and today is the national 'reference model' for this peculiar type of heritage.

Explore some of the modern art pieces and prints from Museo della Carta di Pescia's collections throughout this story.

Important documents from the paper-making company located in the paper mill were donated to the Pescia Paper Museum in 2004.

These documents make up the 'Magnani Historical Archive', over 600 metres of documentation, now located in the first restored wing of the new site of the museum. This wing of the museum was opened in 2016. The Magnani archive is currently being digitised and catalogued. The archive is an important asset to be made available for researchers, allowing not only to safeguard and preserve such heritage for posterity, but also to deepen the research on the history of paper in the Pescia valley.

The museum also aims to actively maintain the immaterial heritage of paper-making by restoring the tradition of watermarked hand-made paper production. In 2018, the newly-founded company 'Impresa Sociale Magnani Pescia' resumed production of handmade watermarked paper and paper products, in collaboration with the museum. The restoration of these techniques has generated new job opportunities in a factory whose roots in the Pescia area date back to the 15th century.

Paper production in Tuscany

Paper production has been characteristic for the Tuscany area for centuries, making the region a prime destination for cultural tourists interested in learning about the history of paper production.

In the 'La Via della Carta in Toscana' project, the Pescia paper museum participated in creating inter-province tourist experiences in and focused on the tradition of the paper industry.

Tuscany is still a hub for paper production. More than 360 companies are located in the paper district in Capannori, forming the most important paper production hub in Europe.

So the old paper factory 'Le Carte' contains more than meets the eye: it's a museum, a historical building, an archive of documents and machinery and tools, and a functioning factory housing a commercial company.

The Pescia Paper Museum is part of the UNESCO project 'Paper Mills of Europe - From the era of hand-made paper'. The project comprises a selected group of six paper mills in five countries (Germany, Czech Republic, Italy, Poland and Spain) that demonstrates a leading role in the handmade paper industry from the 16th centuries onwards. The project partners cover the key pre-industrial European paper producing regions: the Iberian Peninsula and the Apennine Peninsula. Paper production spread from these centres throughout Europe.

Moving towards digital

In the context of the EUreka3D project, the museum embarked on the creation of an ambitious new workflow to start digitising its collections in 3D.

The museum has shared 3D models of two different watermarked moulds to Europeana: the first one with images of Napoleon and Marie Louise crafted in 1812, and the second with an ex libris by Ettore Serra used to produce handmade paper for the first edition of Giuseppe Ungaretti's Il porto sepolto in 1923.

Digitising watermarked moulds is particularly challenging. This is the first time 3D models have been made of this type of heritage. The moulds are complex structures made of different materials: bronze, wood, and copper. They're also very fragile.

Digitising these two moulds and making them accessible on Europeana through the EUreka3D project has been an important test bed for the new 3D digitisation and preservation workflow of the museum.

Now you can see these moulds in detail for yourself in high-quality 3D. Thousands of documents from the Magnani Historical Archives will also become available on Europeana, focusing on the correspondence between Magnani and its worldwide customers, and other artworks and oeuvres on paper in the museum’s collections.

This blog is part of the EUreka3D project, which aims to build the capacity of small cultural heritage institutions in digital transformation, particularly on issues related to 3D digitisation.