Antica Stamperia Marchi, Santarcangelo di Romagna: cloth printed by hand since 1633, pressed by a man walking inside a wheel

Santarcangelo di Romagna, Emilia-Romagna · a printing workshop since 1633 · the mangle is still turned by a man walking inside the wheel

At a glance

Behind a small shopfront in the old town, with MARCHI lettered across the fanlight, is a workshop that has printed cloth by hand since 1633 and still does it the same way: carved wooden blocks, a rust-coloured dye made from iron, and, at the back, a wooden wheel the height of a room. A man climbs inside the wheel and walks; the wheel turns a shaft that drags a great stone slab back and forth over rollers, and the cloth wrapped on the rollers comes out pressed and smooth. That is the mangano, and the workshop was built around it.

Key facts

• Address: Via Cesare Battisti 15, 47822 Santarcangelo di Romagna
• Founded 1633; a bronze plaque by the door reads Bottega artigiana di stampa su tela – 1633
• The mangano: a man-powered mangle — a huge wooden wheel and an enormous stone slab on wooden rollers — used to press, smooth and stretch the cloth before printing; the workshop dates it to 1633
• Printing with carved wooden blocks; the traditional colour is rust, made from rusted iron, with mineral dyes prepared to recipes kept in the family
• The Diderot and d’Alembert Encyclopédie describes the machine: a winch driven by human force moving a large stone on two wooden rollers
• Open to visitors; the mangano is inside and can be seen working
• Coordinates: 44.06327, 12.44457

What you see

From the street: a rounded shop window in a dark red frame set into a brick front, the name in black capitals on the cream fanlight, and in the window the printed cloths themselves — rust-red vine leaves, a tablecloth with a stag, a pair of horns hung with red tassels. Framed prints on the wall outside show the town and the blocks. Beside the door a panel explains the mangle in six languages and a bronze tablet gives the date.

Inside, the wheel. It fills the back room from floor to beams, spokes and rim of dark timber, with the shaft running out of its hub to the stone slab lying on the rollers in the middle of the floor. Around it the workshop as it has always been: rolls of cloth, the printing table, blocks on the shelves, framed patterns on the whitewashed walls, and a long handwritten sheet on the parapet that tells a story about the lion whose pelt hangs above it.

Photographs

Practical information

• A working shop: open in shop hours, and visitors are welcome to see the mangano at the back
• Two minutes from Piazza Ganganelli, on the street that climbs into the old town

Sources

• Explore Valmarecchia, Stamperia Marchi — founded 1633; the mangano as «a unique man-powered mangle consisting of a huge, wooden wheel and an enormous stone slab, still used today to press, smooth and stretch fabrics»; the rust colour from rusted iron; the Encyclopédie description; Via Cesare Battisti 15; open to visitors
• The bronze tablet and the explanatory panel by the door, transcribed from the photographs of 1 November 2025

Record researched and written by Luigi De Marchi for Cultural Heritage Online, 2026.

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