The Silk Industry of Renaissance Venice.

Luca Mola, The Silk Industry of Renaissance Venice

Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. xix + 20 figs. + 457 pp. $48. ISBN: 0-8018-6189-6.

For the past half century, economic historians of early modern Europe have had to respond in one way or another to the view that there existed an economic depression during the Renaissance. Lately, the general trend has been to reject this thesis. Just twelve years ago, for example, Judith Brown observed that "a growing number of economic historians no longer subscribe to the depression thesis while most non-economic historians do" ("Prosperity or Hard Times in Renaissance Italy," Renaissance Quarterly: Winter 1989, 761). The appearance of Luca Mola's exhaustive case study of the silk industry in fifteenth -- and sixteenth -- century Venice is one more nail in the coffin of the depression thesis. Mola is not the first historian (and he certainly will not be the last) to focus on the history of this luxury commodity. Indeed, the exuberance of the silk industry has long been recognized as one of the bright spots of the Renaissance economy. Nevertheless, some scholars have characterized the success of this part icular industry as a symptom of overall economic decline, largely created by excessive regulations imposed by urban guilds and governments. Mola's book makes a convincing case otherwise.

In this detailed, well-researched, and beautifully illustrated study, Mola argues that the industry was neither stagnant, conservative, nor in any way emblematic of economic decline. Indeed, not only was it a vital sector of the economy of Venice and its Terraferma, but it was also highly flexible, open to innovation, and responsive to the changing tastes of consumers. The author has organized the book into three sections: the growth of international competition, the Venetian industry, and the mainland state. Part 1 traces the development of the silk industry from its introduction into Italy before the eleventh century to its full emergence as an urban enterprise in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Part 2 traces the history of the conflict between the demands for protectionism and free trade, focusing in particular on the trade in raw silk and spun thread from abroad. The author points to the rapid adoption in the middle of the sixteenth century of a new red dye from New Spain (the cochineal) as an e xample of the flexibility and openness of the Venetian silk industry to innovation and novelty. Part 3 describes the development of moderate and tolerant policies adopted by Venice towards its subject territories in the second half of the sixteenth century, with particular attention to the permission given subject cities to produce black velvets.

There are a number of observations here that should intrigue a broad circle of historians. For example, Venetian guilds and the government were not monolithic organizations able to stifle and control economic activity at will. Rather, time and again the Venetian state was unable to enforce some of its own regulations, as was clear from the high incidence of smuggling. Furthermore, guilds and silk makers were often divided among themselves regarding policy, as the major and minor spinners often disagreed about proposed regulations before the urban magistracies; and the interests of the merchant-entrepreneurs (setaioli) regarding the trade in spun thread often conflicted with those of the spinners. Furthermore, the Venetian state as portrayed here, at least with regards to the relations of core to periphery (the Terraferma), appears far more benign and enlightened than the traditional image of the Renaissance state.

Though strong on the economic and legislative dimensions as well as on the technical details of the productive process, there is very little social history here. For example, we learn that women "were a driving force behind the spread of the silk industry in Renaissance Europe" (238), but the book includes very little about their role in manufacturing and commerce. Furthermore, the study would have benefited from a fuller account of the process of production as it was experienced by those involved, a more complete social profile of the most fervent promoters of the industry, and a topographical description of the neighborhoods in Venice most closely associated with silk manufacturing. Nevertheless, these considerations aside, The Silk Industry of Renaissance Venice is certainly a major contribution to the body of scholarship on the Renaissance economy.