parchment

Ingredients

animal hides, lime

Preparation Steps

Original Recipe Text

The historical manufacturing procedures varied by geographical area and period, but the term 'parchment' is associated with Western methods using calcium hydroxide since the Middle Ages (p. 1).

Evidence

"A rather similar thermal behavior was observed in some old parchment manuscripts and book-bindings. For example, a restored single sheet document from the Royal Library in Copenhagen and a bookbinding from the States Archives of Florence showed Ts<40 °C, Tl>70 °C and large ΔC intervals. In these samples, the majority of the collagen fibres presented various morphological alterations (i.e. frayed, unwind, flat, cracked, fragmented, shrunk, gel-like) until the total loss of fibrillar structure."

Remarks

Historical samples analyzed include the Biblia Magna (X-XI century) which showed a shift of the Amide II band towards 1523 cm−1, and the manuscript of Marco Polo’s will (1324), which is characterized by large shrinkage intervals (ΔC and ΔT) and a shrinkage temperature (Ts) around 43 °C (p. 6, 10).