Paper mills were built along "Valle dei Mulini" owing to the presence of abundant water. This and easy access to cloth, thanks to the flourishing commercial activity at the time, made Amalfi one of the most important paper manufacturers. From the fifteenth century the need for public and private documents increased and this determined the installation of new mills. The paper mill activity continued to flourish even after the political decline of the town, above all due to the high quality of the paper produced and local manufacturers were so rich and powerful that they founded the "Congrega dei Cartari".
The Amatruda family, whose name derives from a feminine name of Longobard (Lombards) origin, was resident from the 1198 in the hamlet of Pogerola and, over the course of the fourteenth century, participated actively in the social life of Amalfi. From the parchments of the Bishop's archives of Ravello and Amalfi it appears that in 1483, a representative of the Amatruda family of papermakers: Barnaba De Amatruda, who lived in Scala, exchanged some of his property in Campodonnico with the Monastery of San Cataldo. The oldest Amatruda watermark comes from that era. It shows a circle crowned with three Angevin lilys, with a scroll bearing the writing "Amatrulo".
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