Abstract
In this paper, one of the earliest examples of factory system will be presented, namely the silk spinning factory, which thrived in Italy in the XVI-XVII centuries, i.e. a couple of centuries before the Industrial Revolution took place in England. The technology driving the factory was the so-called mulino da seta (silk mill): different types of mulini were developed in different Italian cities, among which the most efficient was the Bolognese silk mill, based on hydraulic driving force. The environmental and economic factors allowing the development of such a technology will be presented in this paper, along with a technical description of the Bolognese silk mill.
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Notes
- 1.
Lucca held a prominent position in the silk industry in the late medieval times. Following a series of political disputes, from the beginning of the XIV century many Lucchese left their hometown. The emigration of Lucchese artisans substantially contributed to the growth of the silk industry in Italy (Molà 2000).
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Comino, S., Gasparetto, A. (2021). The Bolognese Silk Mill: One of the Earliest Examples of Factory System. In: Niola, V., Gasparetto, A. (eds) Advances in Italian Mechanism Science. IFToMM ITALY 2020. Mechanisms and Machine Science, vol 91. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55807-9_1
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