img. A paper mould, 2D image and its 3D digitisation. EUreka3D project/Museo della Carta CC BY-SA
The Museo della Carta in Pescia holds a rich heritage of paper goods consisting of watermarked paper moulds, watermark waxes, punches, watermarked metal sheets, about 7,000 pieces, witnessing the history of paper manufacturing in Tuscany. These goods, which became part of the Museum’s collections thanks to a private donation, document the relationships that the local paper factory named ‘Antiche Cartiere Magnani di Pescia’ had with companies, famous people, banks, insurance companies and, foreign states over three centuries of activity from the mid-eighteenth century to the 2000s.
The Museo della Carta di Pescia became a member of Photoconsortium in 2023 and is one of the partners in EUreka3D project, embarking on a digitization journey both with 2D and 3D techniques, to share these collections in Europeana, also telling the stories about this very particular type of heritage in a blogpost created for publication in Europeana.
THE COLLECTIONS PUBLISHED IN EUROPEANA
3D digitisation: paper moulds
The watermarked paper moulds are very special objects and were used in the past to produce handmade watermarked paper, as we still do today in the Museo della Carta di Pescia, which is located in a completely intact and original eighteenth-century paper mill. The moulds are made of a wooden frame and a metal sheet on which the watermark was sewn with silvered copper wire. Museo della Carta di Pescia was the first institution in Italy to have inventoried and catalogued these assets, also digitising in 2D a selection of the most relevant ones, but had not previously created 3D models of its collections and therefore had no previous experience in this area. The EUreka3D project was an experimental path for this institution that allowed them to create two 3D models of watermarked paper moulds, and gave the Museo della Carta di Pescia the opportunity to acquire skills and evaluate the positive aspects of digital models.
Archival documents
In addition to the tools and machinery for paper production, the Museo della Carta di Pescia also received the Historical Archive of the Magnani Paper Mills of Pescia as a donation. The documents from the archive are now located inside a wing of the Le Carte Paper Mill built specifically for this purpose. It is one of the most important archives of Italian companies and is made up of approximately 700 linear metres of documentation. A 2D digitisation action on these assets was initiated already before the EUreka3D project and continued to offer over 5,000 documents as open access, for publication online and in Europeana.
Paper oeuvres and other 2D digitised objects
As mentioned above, in 2008 the Museum started a pilot project (the first in Italy) for the inventory and cataloguing of paper machinery and goods, followed by several in-depth research projects on a selection of historical items, in particular the watermark paper moulds, and also other artworks on paper, which today constitute the first part of the Museum’s online catalogue. These objects are also published in Europeana in the context of EUreka3D project.
EUreka3D project is co-financed by the Digital Europe Programme of the European Union.
