The book La carta e il Mediterraneo: produzione, commercio, comunicazione, edited by Livia Faggioni and Mauro Mussolin and published in September 2022 by the Fondazione Gianfranco Fedrigoni of Fabriano in the series Storia della Carta, is available online.
The publication is the result of a joint publishing initiative of the Fondazione Fedrigoni Fabriano with the COST Action People in Motion (PIMo), in particular with the working group Paper in Motion, which aims to investigate paper both as an artefact in circulation and as a medium for the codification, recording and exchange of information, ideas, emotions and values in the Mediterranean.
This double point of view permeates all the papers in the volume, which aim to restore the dynamism of paper beyond its function as a support or manufactured product. These include the paper by Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli entitled Carta, libri e Monti di Pietà: una nuova cultura del credito come welfare, which studies the registers conserved in the historical archives of the Monte di Pietà in Bologna. Presenting the material aspect of the rich documentation conserved, and analysing the formats and dimensions, as well as the representations of Pietà that adorn the upper cut of the account books, it emerges how these did not merely perform an accounting and administrative function in support of the activities of Monte di Pietà, but also comunicated a precise image of the institution, evoking precise moral values in the visitors of the Monte and arousing emotions.
To read the paper please download the file below. The whole volume is avaible at this link.