The value of the quality

Silk

From its origins up to the present day

Silk was first seen way back in 2,800 BC at the time of China of the Emperors. Legend has it that Hsi-Ling, the first wife of the emperor Huang-Ti, discovered the way to make silk by watching a silkworm that had accidentally fallen into her hot cup of tea. The Chinese managed to keep that secret for centuries until, in 420 A D, a princess married the prince of Turkestan. The young bride managed to take some silkworm eggs and mulberry seeds, hiding them in her thick hair piled on her head and they were soon all over the world. Silk instantly became an important means of exchange thanks to its extremely high value per unit of weight. Commercial traffic became more and more intense, so much so that its name was given to the major communication route between the Far East and Europe: the Silk Road. Silk was first seen in Italy in 1146 when it came off the ships in Sicily. This was because of the Norman dominion and the presence of some Corinthian prisoners who specialised in silkworm breeding and who were expert silk makers.

This saw the start of production and expansion in all parts of the peninsula, giving the final boost that started the tradition of spinning and then weaving which still generate work and richness today. As history unfolded, the most flourishing Italian centres were Lucca, Venice, Genoa and Como. The first mechanical looms saw the light in 1869 in Milan and it did not take long for them to replace the hand looms. There were 5,500 mechanical looms in Italy in 1900, 3,500 of them in the Como district. The progress that was made in the technical field made it possible to produce better quality materials at less cost which meant that more and more different classes of the population could afford to buy refined fabrics. Thus silk met with democratisation, meaning that it became part of the family budget of social classes that previously could not have afforded it.