Germany · Book conservation; Paper craft; Rhineland heritage
Konservierung der Gutenberg-Bibel — Buchrestaurierung
The conservation of Gutenberg Bibles and other early printed books (incunabula) at the Gutenberg Museum Mainz — the world center for the documentation and conservation of Johann Gutenberg's moveable type printing tradition. The book conservator reads the vellum and paper condition of the 15th-century leaves through a combination of visual transmitted-light assessment and a flexible-stiffness finger-bend test, determining which leaves require humidification and relaxation treatment before any repositioning or encapsulation. Mainz is the birthplace of European printing (1450) and the Gutenberg Museum holds some of the most significant copies of the 42-line Bible — the first major book printed using moveable metal type.
Risk level: Stable · Not listed as ICH; the Gutenberg printing tradition is on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register; Gutenberg Museum Mainz is a major UNESCO heritage institution
The medieval German institution of the Bauhütte, a workshop lodge formed directly on the construction site of a Gothic cathedral, bringing stonemasons, sculptors, carpenters, scaffolders, roofers, and goldsmiths together under one…
The hand-building of violins, other bowed and plucked string instruments, and brass and woodwind instruments in the Vogtland region of Saxony, centered on Markneukirchen, Klingenthal, and Schönbach — founded in the 1650s when twelve violin…
The linen weaving tradition of Bielefeld and the Ravensberger Land — the North Rhine-Westphalian linen production region that was Germany's most significant linen cloth manufacturing center from the medieval period to the late 19th…
The making of Westfälischer Schinken (Westphalian ham) — the slow-smoked, long-aged ham from the Westphalia region, Germany's most historically significant ham tradition and one of Europe's oldest documented smoked meat products (first…
The porcelain painting tradition of KPM Berlin — the Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur founded by Frederick the Great in 1763 (53 years after Meissen, but immediately granted royal patronage and the distinctive KPM orb-and-sceptre mark).
The conservation of the Cologne Cathedral's medieval stained glass — the most significant Gothic stained glass program in Germany, spanning from 13th-century grisaille windows through to Gerhard Richter's controversial contemporary pixel…
Borlas de Pastillas is one of the Philippines' most endangered and least known crafts — the traditional art of cutting and folding the paper wrappers of pastillas de leche (Philippine milk candy) into intricate lace-like designs using only…
A tradition of fine hand bookbinding and hand printing in Rome — centered on the historic printing establishments of the Via del Governo Vecchio and the Vatican typography — producing hand-set letterpress printing, fine binding in full…
Yangliuqing nianhua (杨柳青年画) is the Chinese New Year woodblock print tradition of Yangliuqing town, Tianjin — one of the four canonical New Year print centers alongside Weifang, Foshan, and Taohuawu — and the tradition that most…
A relief printmaking technique in which an Inuit printmaker carves away the surface of a flattened stone block to leave a raised design translated from an artist's original drawing, then inks and hand-prints the design onto paper,…
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