Units of paper quantity size and type of paper being sold. Reams of 500 sheets (20 quires of 25 sheets) were known in England in c1594; in 1706 a ream was defined as 20 quires, either 24 or 25 sheets to the quire. In 18th- and 19th-century Europe, the size of the ream varied widely. In Lombardy a ream of music paper was 450 or 480 sheets; in Britain, Holland and Germany a ream of 480 sheets was common; in the Veneto it was more frequently 500. Some paper manufacturers counted 546 sheets (21 quires of 26 sheets). J.S. Bach's manuscript paper at Weimar
Section (bookbinding) meaning of quire, "quinterno di carta". Later, when bookmaking switched to using paper and it became possible to easily stitch 5 to 7 sheets at a time, the number of sheets and pages in a gathering became more variable. Section (bookbinding) In bookbinding, a section, gathering, or signature refers to a group of sheets, folded in the middle, and bound into the binding together. The section is the basic building block of codex bindings. In Western bookbinding, sections are sewn through their folds, with the sewing thread linking each section to its neighboring sections. The gatherings can be seen by