Page 26 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

Giulio Ongaro and Edoardo Demo

Tretto, Torrebelvicino-Valli del Pasubio, and in Recoaro (in the bordering
Agno Valley) we can roughly identify three stages of the mining activities
(Demo 2004a, 73–81; 2012, 39–40; Panciera 2004, 300–4; 2014, 148; Vianel-
lo 2004a, 263; Vergani 1997, 467; 2003, 124–5); if the extraction and pro-
cessing of iron has been testified to since ancient times (Migliavacca 2021),
from the fifteenth century, silver in particular became the fulcrum of the
investments of the local families. For this reason, in the same period, sig-
nificant migrations of specialized German workers took place (Ludwig and
Vergani 1994, 419), strengthening the relationship with the Imperial ter-
ritories, which became one of the main trading trajectories for the mer-
chants from Schio and Vicenza. Between the second half of the sixteenth
century and the first decade of the following one there was a real boom
in investments in silver extraction, involving the most important fami-
lies from Venice (Morosini, Grimani, Donà, Bollani, Trevisan) and Vicenza
(Civena, Schio, Angarano, Piovene). The wealthy families in Schio recalled
above (Toaldo and Zamboni, for example) actively participated in this ‘sil-
ver rush,’ establishing mining companies together with the Vincentine and
Venetian families. However, from the second decade of the sixteenth cen-
tury the deposits of silver began to run out, and the euphoria that charac-
terized the previous years turned into a slow decline of mining activities:
silver gave way to the traditional iron industry, which had never ceased
throughout the entire early modern period, and to the extraction of kaolin.
The so-called ‘white terrain’ became a relevant part of the investments of
the local families, with huge amounts being sold to the boccalari (pottery
producers) in Vicenza and Venice, and to the vendecolori (literally, ‘colours
sellers’), including Alvise Della Scala, the supplier of the painter Tiziano,
but also exported to the Church State, especially in Faenza, supplying the
local pottery production (Demo and Ongaro 2023).

The Wool Processing
As anticipated, however, the wealthiest families in Schio invested mainly
in the secondary sector, and specifically in textile manufacturing. Quot-
ing Savio (2017, 308–9) who, in turn, quotes a document produced by the
Venetian Savi del corpo del Senato in the mid-sixteenth century, the inhab-
itants of Schio were involved ‘more in breeding cavalieri [silkworms], pro-
ducing clothes, breeding livestock, producing wood for constructions and
firewood, and in other trades, than in agriculture.’ Indeed, if the mining in-
dustry was a relevant field of investment around Schio, and it allowed the
rise of important families of rural entrepreneurs, the textile sector made

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