"Sorgue, your shoulders like an open book spread their reading"
Wrote the poet René Char.
When the paper mill technique passed from Italy to France, what was necessary for this industry to flourish? Essentially water, abundant and pure.
The Sorgue, a river praised by Petrarch, was an ideal site for the development of this formidable communication medium: paper
The first paper mill in Provence was established in Carpentras in 1374.
But Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, became the most important location for paper production.
In "Epistle to Posterity" Petrarch wrote: "I met a very narrow but lonely and pleasant valley, called Vaucluse, a few miles from Avignon, where the queen of all the fountains, the Sorgue, takes its source. Seduced by the amenity of the place, I carried my books and my person. »