University of Virginia Library

Annual Agreement with the Master of the Mill

The Owner of the papermill has to provide the Master who is to make
the paper with 400 cantare of rags every year,[33] and the Master is required to
return to the owner for every 100 cantare 75 bales of white writing paper of
the usual size and weight, that is 12½ pounds per ream. A bale is taken to
be of ten reams, a ream of twenty quires and a quire of twenty-five sheets.

In every ream it is understood that there will be three quires of imperfect
sheets, two at the bottom and one at the top; these imperfect quires are of
twenty-four sheets.

The building and the site should be handed to the Master with everything
in order, and in this condition he should hand it back when he leaves,
and he is required to supply ropes for the presses, stampers, shafts, boiler,
impidori, to keep in good repair the nails, shafts, reinette and seo, [34] and to
supply the materials for maintaining the troughs.

The said owner has to provide the size, felts, moulds, ropes for the drying
loft, firewood and everything needed to be able to work, and all of this he
will charge to the Master.

Each Saturday the Master will be given the money he needs, and for
making the paper he will be paid eight lire of our current money per bale.
For every 400 cantare of rags the Owner is to receive in return 300 bales of
paper, and in addition the Master should make from these rags thirty to

forty further bales, for which he should be paid at the current rate, that is,
the price paper normally fetches, and the owner has to feel the benefit of this
increased production, as in the rest of the paper which has been made for
him. With regard to this surplus some Masters sometimes use little loyalty,
as a custom has grown up whereby they sell it to others, even though this
has been prohibited by law with heavy penalties both for the sellers and the
buyers.

Among the 300 bales of paper there are usually eight to ten bales of inferior
goodness, according to the quality of the rags, and these are called
gruzzotti, and the owner accepts them, as is customary.

The best rags are Florentine, then those from Lombardy, then our own,
and the least good come from Naples and other places.

There is a difference in price, which arises from the quality of the rags,
the best of which give several bales of fioretti, and these are sold at 20-25%
more than the ordinary price.

With rags of inferior quality the Master of the mill is allowed some
imperfections, which even out the difference of price, for the same consignment
of rags is used in manufacturing fioretti as in making ordinary paper.