industry and production in the venetian terraferma 305
total raw silk production in the terraferma came to more than 90 tons, a
figure which would rise to little more than 150 tons by the first decade of
the 17th century; such a figure would have been second only to the pro-
ductive capacity of calabria and at a similar level to that of sicily, thus
making the Venetian republic the primary producer of raw silk in central
and northern Italy in this period. In the first decade of the 17th century,
the lion’s share continued to be produced in Verona and Vicenza, but sig-
nificant amounts of raw materials were also obtained from the regions of
treviso, padua, Friuli, and, above all, from Venetian Lombardy. It was this
last area, in fact, which would witness sustained growth in raw silk pro-
duction in the centuries to come, such that by the end of the 18th century
the territories of Brescia and Bergamo together look to have produced
more than 10 per cent of all silk obtained from the Italian peninsula.28
silk spinning and throwing are documented as spreading at a similar
rate to the cultivation itself. In this crucial phase of silk working as well,
it was in Vicenza and Verona that these operations first underwent a pre-
cocious and in some ways extraordinary development. their spread into
other areas was certainly slower, though by the second half of the 16th
century there were active throwing machines in Bassano, padua, udine,
Brescia, treviso, Feltre, and, most of all, Bergamo.29
as for Vicenza, silk production between the 15th and 17th centuries
underwent a veritable boom. In the city on the banks of the Bacchiglione,
several silk mills were already active in 1418. there were at least eight of
them between the 1450s and 1470s, a number destined to grow further in
the following century as the city’s importance as a hub of semifinished
textile production continued to grow, such that in 1596 the city could
boast no fewer than 100 silk mills. It must also be underlined that many
of these were powered using a hydraulic wheel.30
the spread of silk throwing was of no less importance in Verona. here
there are documents testifying to the activity of circular silk-throwing
machines beginning in the first decade of the 15th century, while there
is evidence of the presence of an hydraulic spinning wheel in the years
immediately following. But it was in the 1540s that, alongside the dizzying
growth of mulberry and silkworm cultivation in Verona’s territory, spin-
ning and throwing machines became ever more numerous: six in 1528,
28 Molà, the Silk Industry of renaissance Venice, pp. 223–36; Mocarelli, “Manufacturing
activities in Venetian Lombardy,” pp. 323–24.
29 Molà, the Silk Industry of renaissance Venice, pp. 237–41.
30 demo, L’“anima della città,” pp. 207–08; Vianello, Seta fine e panni grossi, pp. 83–89.