vellum
Noun
Meaning
A fine kind of parchment, usually made from calfskin, and rendered clear and white, -- used as for writing upon, and for binding books.
Source: Webster's dictionarySynonyms
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Your life story is a novel; and people, though they love novels wound between two yellow paper covers, are oddly suspicious of those which come to them in living vellum.
A quarter of the 180 copy edition of Johannes Gutenberg 's first Bible printed in 1455 with movable type was also printed on vellum, presumably because his market expected this for a high-quality book.
Although the term derives from the French for "calf", animal vellum can include hide from virtually any other mammal.
As printing material he used both paper and vellum (high-quality parchment).
Before the widespread availability of paper, 12th century monks in European monasteries used intricate drawings to prepare illustrated, illuminated manuscripts on vellum and parchment.
For this reason, many important documents are written on animal vellum, such as diplomas.