Behind Amalfi opens a narrow valley called the valley of the Mills, and the name says it all: the water coming down from the mountain turned the wheels of the paper mills. Here bambagina paper was made, and the Amalfitans had learned the technique from the Arabs, before the rest of Europe knew how it was done.
What to see
The museum is a real mill, turned into a museum in 1969 by its owner, who belonged to one of the historic families of the trade. Inside are the hammers, the vats, the presses and the moulds, restored and still working: you see the water coming in, the machinery beating the rags and the sheet forming in the tub.
Upstairs there are photographs, prints and a small library on production techniques. Paper was for centuries one of the goods of the maritime republic: it was sold, exported, and its quality was a matter of commercial reputation like cloth or spices.
Visiting
The museum is in via delle Cartiere, five minutes on foot from the cathedral going up the valley; you go in on a guided visit of about twenty minutes, with a ticket, and at the end you watch a sheet being made by hand. An hour.
Our editors' tip
When they show you the pulp, look at what it is made of: rags. For centuries paper was got from cast-off clothes, and the rag-picker's trade existed because the mills needed used linen and hemp. Only in the nineteenth century was there a shift to wood, and that is why old books survive better than those of a hundred years ago.