Historical textile printing workshop Still producing traditional prints from Romagna.
The “Stamperia Artigiana Marchi” (literally the old artisanal printing house) is one of the oldest workshops of Romagna.
Founded in 1633, the Marchi printshop offers a glimpse back to the past whilst proudly preserving and enriching the original hand printing techniques, tools, motifs and heritage.
Since the beginning, it has housed the old “Mangano”, a unique man-powered mangle consisting of a huge, wooden wheel and an enormous stone slab, still used today to press, smooth and stretch fabrics.
In the French encyclopaedia of Diderot and D’Alambert the “Mangano” is described as a: “winch driven by human force moving a large stone on two wooden rollers”.
By moving the stone back and forth, the cloth wrapped around the wooden pins is pressed and smoothed. Afterwards the fabric is decorated with hand-carved wooden print blocks and dye, traditionally, just as it was 400 years ago!
For the printing, natural dyes of mineral origin are used, prepared according to centuries-old secret recipes known only to the owners and passed down from father to child.
The most traditional colour is the rust colour made from rusted iron.
After printing, the fabrics are dried and colour-fixed to make the colour indelible.
The Stamperia with its “Mangano” is open to visitors.
