Judging a book by its cover

DFASinMalta adopts decorated paper covers at the Notarial Archives

Although we are taught not to judge a book by its cover, sometimes we do exactly that at the Notarial Archives. While the content of a volume remains especially important to researchers, the beauty of a decorated paper cover is apparent to anyone at first glance. It is for this aesthetic quality that priority has been given to the conservation and preservation of the thirty odd examples of decorated paper covers at the Notarial Archives.

The collection of decorated pa- pers at the Notarial Archives is remarkable for its complex designs and use of colour. Block printed papers were very popular in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe, particularly in Italy and Germany. It is still yet not known whether Maltese binders ever produced their own decorated papers. Stylistically, the decorated paper covers at the Notarial Archives are akin to Italian examples in their designs. This possibility highlights the trading and importation of such decorated papers from Italy.

Since block printed papers were not expensive to produce, they used to be made in bulk. Because they were commonly used, they were considered ephemeral and many were reused, discarded or recycled. The decorated paper covers which survive at the Notarial Archives were mostly used for binding the index volumes of notaries and logbooks which list inventories, materials, or expenses. The fact that they were reused by the notary was the essential reason for their survival. This makes them quite rare thus the efforts of the Notarial Archives Resource Council to seek sponsors for their conservation treatment. DFASinMalta, Malta’s first own Decorative and Fine Arts Society, was very keen to raise awareness of these special covers and set the example by sponsoring the conservation treatment of three such volumes.

One of the decorated paper covers from the collection at the Notarial Archives, awaiting conservation treatment