Page 27 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

Eonomy and Networks of Rural Elite Families in a Manufacturing Area

the fortune of the Vicentine village and of its elites. The trajectory, even if
far from being linear, moved at least from the fifteenth century up to the
first decades of the nineteenth century, when the Rossi industry, one of
the most important (and precocious) woollen factories in the entire Ital-
ian area, was established. An extraordinary continuity, that is intertwined
to the analogous continuity of the economic and social importance of the
families recalled in the previous lines.
A description of the importance of the secondary sector in the area can
be gleaned from a dramatic event that happened in Schio at the end of the
sixteenth century, an episode that allows us to grasp both the relevance of
the textile sector in the village, and the relationships between the local en-
trepreneurial families and the urban ones (asvi, Magrè, b. 4, fasc. 76): on
29 August 1595, the brothers Ettore and Camillo Beffa, residing in Magrè (a
village adjacent to Schio), were entering Schio from the southern district,
Oltraponte, together with their friends Orazio Gardelin and Augusto Pel-
lizzari. When they reached the palace of the Vicentine noble family Magré,
they were ambushed by Stefano Magrè, son of Giacomo, and some oth-
er men. The reason seems to be the fact that some days before, Riccardo
Beffa, a cousin of Ettore and Camillo, killed a member of the Magrè fam-
ily, and for this reason he was imprisoned in Verona. The Beffa brothers,
Gardelin and Pellizzari, were armed (being members of the local rural mili-
tia), and the subsequent shooting led to the death of Camillo Beffa and to
the wounding of Orazio Gardelin and of Isabella Beffa, sister of Camillo
and Ettore, who was on her doorstep, close to the firing.
The depositions collected by the Venetian officials who investigated the
event draw a very interesting picture of the society of Schio and of the char-
acteristics of the village. They describe the district Oltraponte as studded
with workshops of tailors, furriers and cobblers: the witness Domenico Pi-
lati, son of Francesco, a merchant from Torrebelvicino (Demo and Ongaro
2023), for example, described himself as an apprentice in the workshop of
the tailor Bartolomeo Penzato (asvi, Magrè, c. 62 r.), while Cristoforo di
Nicola dale Pozze, from the Tretto upland, was a peliparius (furrier) and de-
clared that while the shooting was happening he was ‘in the workshop of
my employer and I was working,’ and that ‘there was just a colleague with
me’ (asvi, Magrè, cc. 108 r.–v.). Further, Prudenzia, daughter of Pierobon
Tamburini, said that she was ‘in my house, in the workshop,’ together with
Giustina Verona, and ‘we were spinning [...] and talking, and laughing’
(asvi, Magrè, c. 146 v.). This last deposition testifies that wool spinning
was widespread not only in the peasant houses around Schio (Panciera

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