2 74 luciano pezzolo
long been sold in those regions. The deterioration of relations between
Florence and the Sublime Porte, internal political instability, and the
reduction of imports of raw silk from Persia which counterbalanced the
exports of woolen goods, significantly weakened the Florentine position
in the Levant, though the Florentines continued to grow in the northern
European market.40 At the same time, the recovery of the spice trade in
the eastern Mediterranean offered the Venetians ample possibilities of
trade in exchange for woolen cloths. This ensured that, from the mid-
16th century, the performance of the Venetian wool industry would be
the exception to the general rule of the industry’s difficulties, both in the
Venetian terraferma and in the principal centers of the peninsula.
As for the raw materials used in the highest-quality production, the
traditional supplies of famed English wool were now joined by Spanish
merino wool, which by the end of the 16th century wholly replaced the
former. It is certainly not by chance that merchants of Castilian wool left
Florence for the lagoon at the beginning of the 17th century, attracted
by the prospective of its lucrative trade. It must be said, however, that
the supply channels were often heavily conditioned by the instability and
tensions of international politics. In any case, it does not appear that the
Venetian producers had to confront serious supply problems during the
period of 16th-century expansion, as they were able to call on raw materi-
als from both Spain and the Balkans.
The quantitative data, however, hide an important structural change
with regard to the quality of the fabrics. Richard Rapp has underlined
that the numbers conceal a profound transformation in qualitative terms.
From the third quarter of the 16th century, the traditional production of
heavy fabrics made of high-quality wool came to be combined with a pro-
duction of lighter, medium-quality fabrics, which better met the tastes of
Levantine demand and which from the middle of the century constituted
the majority of the cloths produced in Venetian workshops.41 Thus, the
Venetian wool boom was characterized by significant qualitative changes
that, as we shall see, force us to question the accusations made against
the urban guild system as an impediment to innovation. Even an in-depth
40 Richard A. Goldthwaite, The Economy of Renaissance Florence (Baltimore, 2009),
pp. 274–75.
41 Rapp, Industry and Economic Decline, p. 158. See also Walter Panciera, L’arte matrice.
I lanifici della Repubblica di Venezia nei secoli XVII e XVIII (Treviso, 1996).