The Ancient Mangle of Santarcangelo di Romagna

In the run-up to our September Textile Summit we’ve all been noticing more and more stories highlighting material and method. The latest one to grab my attention was this documentary about an ancient mangle in the Italian countryside.

It’s been in continuous use since 1633, and enjoyed a bit of engineering from none other than Leonardo da Vinci. The link to an 8 minute film is below. What I appreciated was the care and respect this family of artisans took with a multi-step process - using hundred year old hemp, recognizing that it was unprintable unless it were first ironed with their multi-ton mangle (what?!), and then printed with molds that were also hundreds of years old (or faithfully re-created).

So here’s a link to the article in Craftsmanship Quarterly

https://craftsmanship.net/ancient-mangle-santarcangelo-di-romagna/

And here’s a preview of what the mangle looks like

And here’s the link to the video