industry and production in the venetian terraferma 297
manufacturesthe Wool Industry
From the creation of the Venetian regional state, the terraferma assumed
the appearance of an area marked by a lively wool production to be found
in all the principal centers west of the capital, and often distant only a
few dozen kilometers from one another. this production was generally of
good quality and destined for export; after another phase of solid expan-
sion in the second half of the 15th century, production entered a slow but
steady withdrawal, which by the early 17th century led to a general reor-
ganization of urban production capacities and which was mitigated only
in part by a strong corresponding growth in the production of headwear
and knitwear. the only real exception to the aforementioned picture is
the case of Bergamo, whose ability to maintain levels of cloth production
was the fruit of a particularly effective process of innovation and material
reconversion which aimed to adapt to the new demands of international
markets.
In addition to the wide variety of available energy sources (particularly
water and wood), one of the principal factors behind the development
of the Veneto wool industry in the early modern period was the plenti-
ful availability of mid- to high-quality local wool. It was this factor which
distinguished the manufacturing centers of the Venetian terraferma from
other principal Italian centers of wool production for export. the latter
were practically obligated to resort to the use of raw materials of for-
eign provenance in production; but between the 14th and 15th centuries,
and particularly in Verona, Vicenza, and padua, there was a conscious
attempt to improve the quality of local wool, thanks to which merchant-
entrepreneurs in the terraferma were slowly able to liberate, in large part,
their production of high-quality cloth from a dependence on foreign raw
materials. It was only in the late 16th century, with a crisis of local sheep-
farming more qualitative than quantitative and more evident for Verona
than Vicenza, padua, and the other areas of the Veneto, that references to
the use of “local” wool in urban production become increasingly sporadic
and tended to regard mainly the production of manufactures in which the
locally produced raw material was mixed with foreign wool, particularly
spanish (castilian) or of Balkan origin (the so-called “salonicche”).15
15 edoardo demo, “Wool and silk: the textile urban Industry of the Venetian Mainland
(XV–XVII centuries),” in Lanaro, ed., at the Center of the Old World, pp. 219–20.