watermarked paper

Evidence

"The watermark that is present in some pages of the 1351 copy of Mirṣād al-ʿIbād indicates that this paper was not produced in Rūm and was very likely Italian in origin, perhaps reinforcing the cosmopolitanism of the region in which the manuscripts were produced."

Remarks

This is identified as the only paper within the core material of the study that features a watermark, making it the earliest dated example of watermarked paper in an Islamic manuscript from Rūm (p. 205). The author notes that acquiring Italian paper would have been relatively straightforward in İstanos due to its proximity to Antalya, a major international center of mercantile activity and a 'commercial gateway' from Europe to Rūm (p. 205). Reference is made to Jonathan Bloom's claim that the decline of the Baghdad paper industry and the low price of Italian imports led to the widespread use of Italian paper for Arabic, Persian, and Armenian books by the mid-fourteenth century (p. 205).