An
Unbroken Tradition
WAIST
DEEP IN WATER, Angelo Mortellaro is dwarfed by
the towering papyrus plants that surround him.
Graceful, yet sturdy, the stems stretch some
five to six meters towards the sky, only for
their lush foliage to drape back down towards
the water like delicate firework explosions of
strands and spikes.
Wading
through the pond on his carefully-tended farm
just outside the Sicilian town of Syracuse in
Southern Italy, Mortellaro examines the plants
with calm focus. Selecting those ready for
harvest, he uses a small sickle with practiced
ease as he cuts the mature plants near the base
of the stem, collecting the reeds in a pile on
the shore.
Mortellaro’s
farm is designed as an oasis with a single
water-access point that supplies the entire
papyrus plantation. Home to many other plants
that thrive in the Mediterranean environment —
palm trees, crane flowers, willows, orange
trees, prickly pear cacti, and sugar cane, to
name a few — it is one of the last remaining
papyrus farms in the region. And it is located
just a few miles from the only wild papyrus
refuge outside of Africa: the Ciane River.
In
addition to growing papyrus, Mortellaro also
practices the centuries-old craft of papyrus
papermaking, an art once prevalent in the
region. “My grandfather, Angelo La Mesa, was a
papyrus farmer,” Mortellaro recalls. “He used to
supply papyrus to local papermakers and I would
spend a lot of time with him by the ponds where
papyrus grew. I was fascinated by the artisans
who used to come by my grandfather’s farm to
pick up the stalks for papermaking.”
Today,
some 40 years later, Mortellaro is among the few
remaining artisans in the area who still make
papyrus paper — but he faces growing threats to
this endeavor. Pollution has been creeping into
the Ciane, threatening the ecosystem there. At
the same time, warmer, drier seasons have made
it harder for papyrus plants to grow in
Syracuse, both in the wild and on local
farms.
Reporter Camilla Capasso’s
feature about one of Europe’s last papyrus paper
makers beautifully captures Angelo Mortellaro’s
commitment to keep alive a species and a
tradition that are quietly slipping
away. | 
