Project: Paper Trails. Identification of Watermarks on the Paper of Ethiopian Manuscripts from the Collection of the Church of Santo Stefano dei Mori in the Vatican City

by

  • Principal Investigators:
    Dr. Dorota Dzierzbicka – PCMA UW
    Dr. Daria Elagina – University of Münster

    Contact: d.dzierzbicka@uw.edu.pl

    Funding:

    Excellence Initiative – Research University Programme I.3.10. Preparation and launching of an interdisciplinary research and teaching project Archeooriental Studies – Small Archeooriental Studies, 3rd edition

    Project term:

    2 January – 31 December 2025

    Budget:

    68,000 PLN

  • Paper Trails. Identification of Watermarks on the Paper of Ethiopian Manuscripts from the Collection of the Church of Santo Stefano dei Mori in the Vatican City

    Keywords: Ethiopian manuscripts, watermarks, paper, manuscript materiality, interregional trade, Ethiopian community, Old Dongola, 15th–16th century, Vatican, Church of Santo Stefano dei Mori, archeooriental studies

    The project implements interdisciplinary research on 15th–16th century Ethiopian manuscript culture from a material perspective (the study of watermarks on paper) in the context of interregional commerce and social interconnections between Europe, the East, and Africa. It stems from our study of a colophon to an Ethiopian text dated to 1596 and preserved in manuscript Vat.Et.44, now at the Vatican. Its author had set out on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem from Ethiopia through Old Dongola, Sudan. Vat.Et.44 came to the Vatican from the church of S. Stefano dei Mori, which in the XV–XVI c. housed an Ethiopian community and a library of dozens of volumes.

    The first investigation of the paper of Vat.Et.44, undertaken to learn if it was written already in Italy or somewhere on the way from Sudan, has shown Italian watermarks. However, Italian paper was widely traded to the Ottoman Empire and Africa. Very little is known about the paper of Ethiopian manuscripts, ordinarily written on parchment, and no research has been done on the materiality of the S. Stefano library.

    Project aims

    1. Documentation of watermarks on 43 paper manuscripts from S. Stefano (38 in Rome, 4 in Milan and 1 in Florence) to determine paper origin
    2. Collection of new data on the materiality of Ethiopian paper manuscripts and paper trade between Italian centres and the Ottoman East and Africa in the XV–XVI c. CE
    3. Gaining new insights on the Ethiopian community at S. Stefano and its library.
    Associated events:

    May 4–15, 2025: Study visits to the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana in the Vatican City and Biblioteca Casanatense in Rome.

    Lectures and conference presentations:
    Project bibliography:

    Dzierzbicka, D., & Elagina, D. (2025). “I resided in Dongola, amongst the Nubians and Muslims, on my own.”: The sixteenth-century account of Ethiopian monk Takla ʾAlfā in context. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/0067270X.2025.2477380

    Elagina, D., & Dzierzbicka, D. (2024). Stranded in Dongola: MS Vatican City, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, Vaticani etiopici 44, 71v–76v, a colophon by the monk Takla ʾAlfā, reconsidered. Aethiopica, 27, 83–107. https://doi.org/10.15460/aethiopica.27.2283

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