La costruzione storica per l’industria della carta nel Lazio. L’arte cartaria e le sue fabbriche

The paper-manufacturing sector played a leading role in the framework of the industrialization processes that characterised the economic and production development in Italy before and after its uni€cation. Along the lines of a long tradition of craftsmanship and proto-industrialism and with exceptional synchronisation compared to France and England, the process of industrialization was to turn the paper industry in no time, into a mechanical and ‘continuous’ industry (with the invention of the continuous paper-manufacturing machine). As is known, this same process has its roots in the ‘Terra di lavoro’ (Land of Work), in the Kingdom of Naples, which for some time had been administered by the region of Lazio. The longevity and signi€cance of the paper-manufacturing sector, has enabled us, on approaching the subject, to learn about the existing relationship between production and the construction of the paper mills, essential in directing management, now that many production sites have seen their life-long activities abruptly discontinued. In Lazio already, between the XV and XVI centuries, documentary evidence mentioned the existence of paper mills in Grottaferrata, Sant’Elia Fiumerapido, Subiaco, Carnello and Tivoli. The former, were surprisingly paper mills belonging to abbeys. It was to be from these very sites in some cases, that manufacturing activities would with time come to be consolidated and would be expanded into becoming ourishing industrial basins in XIX and XX. Considering this long history, one wonders whether it would be possible, as preannounced by Quatremère de Quincy, an “elementary principle […] to identify a sort of nucleus around which, following developments, and the variations of shapes to which “the object is susceptible to”, agglomerates could be established and coordinated. In this sense Renzo Sabbatini warns: “Despite the impression given through literature of inertia, the term paper mill does not single out a univocal reality with dened features true to all the phases in the modern era and all the areas of production.”. €is would assume a synchronised development of the building structures as well as production-techniques in the sector concerned, however some paper mills evolved more rapidly than others adopting new technological solutions, to then perhaps going through long periods of inactivity during periods of local stagnation. Hence, through a synoptic reading of the work, it highlights common denominators of a development that over time concerned new factories, adaptations of other buildings, even monuments in addition to numerous extensions and reuse. Main leading thread of the evolution that took place in the factory was the relationship that it had woven across the centuries with the changes that were taking place in production activities, from the multiple hammer stamping mill from Fabriano, the Dutch beater roll, to the at-bed continuous and cylinder machine.