Blue Paper

Blue Paper investigates the historical significance of blue-hued paper, used in Italy from c.1400-c.1600 for drawing, writing, and printing. Once overlooked due to its perceived low quality, this book applies close visual examination to surviving examples, offering new insights and interpretations that enrich our understanding of this often-dismissed material. It provides a fresh perspective on blue paper’s role in early modern art and culture.

This book studies the early modern phenomenon of the increasing production and consumption of blue-hued paper, a material used widely in Italy as a drawing, writing and printing support as well as an ephemeral wrapping. Until recently researchers overlooked blue paper as an object of curiosity and worthy of study, often judging that, because of its assumed less refined fabrication and mottled colour compared to the finest contemporary white papers, it was a poor-quality product of lowly function and no particular interest. Close looking, a method of visual examination used regularly by a wide range of professional disciplines, is used here to examine a selection of surviving paper artefacts from the period c.1400-c.1600. Combined with a reconsideration of the extant documentary sources and placed in a broad historically-based synchronic context, this book presents new information and interpretations to enrich the nascent blue paper corpus.

Foreword Acknowledgements Chapter 1 Sources and methods 'Another book on the Italian Renaissance?' Why blue? Limitations of written and illustrated sources Examination of original artefacts Close looking Desiderata Chapter 2 Early modern European blue papermaking: fibres and colorants The main constituents of early modern blue papers Fibres Hemp Flax/linen Cotton Wool Silk Colorants Woad Indigo Woad, indigo and indigotin blue Chapter 3 Making and distinguishing early modern blue papers Water Mills making coloured paper Organisational systems Rags Recycled textiles Ships' sails Ropes Recycled (waste) paper New textiles The procurement of papermaking rags Quantities Rag sorting How paper became blue: fabrication of blue paper sheets Prepared blue paper Paper dyed blue in the vat or after sheet formation Blued paper Variegated (mixed fibre) blue paper The fading of indigotin-dyed paper Chapter 4 Drawings on blue paper: the fifteenth century Primary evidence Written sources Drawings Assumptions and possibilities Chapter 5 Drawings on blue paper: the sixteenth century Revival and diffusion of interest in Venetian drawing practice Single sheet prints on blue paper Drawings heightened with coloured chalks on blue paper Portrait drawings on blue paper c.1600 Chapter 6 Blue book text blocks, notebooks, album pages and wrapping paper Early sixteenth-century Venetian books printed on variegated blue paper Paper for printing Aldus Manutius, Christophe Plantin and blue paper The decoration of printed books Blue paper text blocks: the reanimation of the achievements of antiquity Publishing of blue text blocks after Aldus Manutius The Badile album The Vicenza notarial sheet Ephemeral uses Ream wrappers Blue wrapping paper Conclusion Bibliography,

Foreword
Acknowledgements

Chapter 1 Sources and methods

‘Another book on the Italian Renaissance?’
Why blue?
Limitations of written and illustrated sources
Examination of original artefacts
Close looking
Desiderata

Chapter 2 Early modern European blue papermaking: fibres and colorants

The main constituents of early modern blue papers
Fibres
Hemp
Flax/linen
Cotton
Wool
Silk
Colorants
Woad
Indigo
Woad, indigo and indigotin blue

Chapter 3 Making and distinguishing early modern blue papers

Water
Mills making coloured paper
Organisational systems
Rags
Recycled textiles
Ships’ sails
Ropes
Recycled (waste) paper
New textiles
The procurement of papermaking rags
Quantities
Rag sorting
How paper became blue: fabrication of blue paper sheets
Prepared blue paper
Paper dyed blue in the vat or after sheet formation
Blued paper
Variegated (mixed fibre) blue paper
The fading of indigotin-dyed paper

Chapter 4 Drawings on blue paper: the fifteenth century

Primary evidence
Written sources
Drawings
Assumptions and possibilities

Chapter 5 Drawings on blue paper: the sixteenth century

Revival and diffusion of interest in Venetian drawing practice
Single sheet prints on blue paper
Drawings heightened with coloured chalks on blue paper
Portrait drawings on blue paper c.1600

Chapter 6 Blue book text blocks, notebooks, album pages and wrapping paper

Early sixteenth-century Venetian books printed on variegated blue paper
Paper for printing
Aldus Manutius, Christophe Plantin and blue paper
The decoration of printed books
Blue paper text blocks: the reanimation of the achievements of antiquity
Publishing of blue text blocks after Aldus Manutius
The Badile album
The Vicenza notarial sheet
Ephemeral uses
Ream wrappers
Blue wrapping paper
Conclusion

Bibliography

• By (author) Thea Burns

"... Thea Burns has most admirably achieved her aim of bringing "together what is known today, or can be extrapolated or hypothesised about early modern blue paper, from a wide consideration of context and careful looking at individual artefacts, and to place this information in a broader more conceptual framework" all in a very accessible and readable way." Peter Bower for The Quarterly - Journal of the British Association of Paper Historians, no.134, April 2025, pp.34-35
—