This warped and worn nineteenth-century Italian manuscript appears to be a working manual and color inventory of a wool dyer in mid-nineteenth-century Italy. The handwritten entries are dated between 1856 and 1866, suggesting that the notebook was used and added to over a period of time. The work includes more than 500 numbered and itemized recipes for dyes. Recipes are illustrated with more than 800 wool and fabric samples adhered to the pages. The samples range in colors from shades of brown to vivid fuchsia, turquoise, and mustard. The samples include fabrics of wool, felt, and cotton, as well as raw wool and coils of yarn. Ingredients listed include mud, urine, arsenic, and vitriol. Pages 192-219 contain longer descriptions of dying processes, one attributed to Giacomo Udinese and another to Cesare Bizzi.
“Italian Dyer's Notebook,” circa 1856–1866. MS 19. Science History Institute. Philadelphia. https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/gygpu42.
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