Il Papiro - Paper Store in Florence

Il Papiro is a chain of stationery stores based in Florence. They have six branches in Florence, two in Venice, and others in Rome, Pisa, even New York and Melbourne. The store is larger than it appears from the street, because it goes back quite a distance and there’s another room at the back. The back room has shelves of linen towels and albums. They also sell pens, notepaper, blank books, cards, bookmarks, art supplies, the list goes on…..

This branch was only two doors from our hotel, the Gioia, on Via Cavour. By the way, if you need a good 3-star hotel in Florence, I recommend it. It has a small number of rooms (28), courteous and helpful staff, fresh espresso/cappucino around the clock and free with breakfast, free WiFi, and a great location — 15 minutes’ walk from the train station, 15 minutes from the Great Synagogue and kosher market, and 10 minutes from the Duomo. The rooms are quite basic but clean. The WiFi is available in the room, not only the lobby. You’ll be happy to hear that the serial killer museum mentioned in some of the reviews (see Google street view) has been replaced by this delightful paper shop.

It’s a little pricey but if you’re looking for unusual, reasonably priced souvenirs that don’t weigh much, bookmarks (both leather and paper), blank books and cards are an option. They even sell beautiful linen twoels (real linen!), displayed in the window below, but that was beyond my budget. I bought a few paper bookmarks, like the ones  mounted on the green background, and a couple leather bookmarks decorated with strips of marbled paper.

An English-speaking Japanese woman who has been living and working in Florence for eight years demonstrated marbling.

She dripped paint over a tray of water thickened with some substance:

She asked me to choose a comb. I chose the fine one, in the background of this photo:

She drew a stick through the floating paint vertically, before spreading the paint with the comb in a horizontal motion.

Paint after passing a comb through it:

Finished paper. I should have asked her for it but I didn’t think of it at the time. She told the man at the counter that it “troppo verde” (“too green”) but I thought the design was quite nice.

Other marbled paper, already dried and rolled.

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