Papermakers and Paperusers: Support as Image in the Early Modern Spanish Atlantic

Blank paper with the 'Mariane' watermark, French (?), mid-17th century, Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid

Early modern Europe ran on paper. It was indispensable as a support for letters, orders, trials, and receipts, in addition to drawings and prints. Yet, when backlit, many papers reveal hidden content: watermarks, which flicker in and out of legibility. When considered seriously as emblems with iconographic and textual programs, watermarks transform the blank pages they are indivisible from into images. And as images–often with religious components, such as crosses or monstrances–they garnered the attention of individuals charged with monitoring the proper usage of such symbols: the functionaries of the Holy Office of the Inquisition. In this talk, I will use the inquisitors’ debates on the merits of censoring papers with religious watermarks to reflect on the tensions and correspondences between ancient sacred symbols and modern commodities in a global colonial system.