Show gondolas were in use in sixteenth century days gondolas are first mentioned in in an eleventh century document and by the sixteenth century competition among their owners in venice had become so fierce that the city had to set up a code of 0 fair practices instead of being allowed to attract passengers by the bright colors on their boats the gondoliers gondo liers were summarily ordered to paint everything black and black the gondolas have remained to this day observes a writer in the los ang angeles eles times using was probably the most fragile and impermanent material man has ever used as a writing material while the parchment which they introduced proved to be the best the most permanent the most indestructible and all in all the most satisfactory writing surface ever discovered parchment is usually made ot of sheepskin or lambskin and vellum which most people think of as be |