Page 35 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

Eonomy and Networks of Rural Elite Families in a Manufacturing Area

256–8; Fontana 1985, 91–7). In 1749, together with Giorgio Stahl, Nicolò
Tron also took over a woollen factory in Follina, in the province of Treviso,
where they introduced the same technological innovations (Gasparini and
Panciera 2000).
According to Panciera (2004, 258), in the second half of the eighteenth
century ‘the growth rate of the woollen production became insistent.’ Ac-
tually, the 1762 tax survey (ascs, b. 28.) does not show (so far) this trend: it
lists 19 chiodare, 29 mill wheels (as in 1700), four fulling mills (one less than
in 1700), two purghi (one more than in 1700), and also two argogli (combing
structures) for the cotonatura (brushing) of woollen clothes (as in 1700).
Certainly, however, the number of manufacturing structures is not an ac-
curate measure of the productive capacity of an area, given that it does
not consider the number of workers employed in each structure, the pro-
ductivity, the machinery used, and so on. Indeed, looking at the amount of
mezzetti produced it seems that there was a notable increase in production,
from 3,400 garments in 1758 to 5,104 garments in 1762 (Panciera 1988, 48).
However, a few years later, in 1766, the situation seems to be drastical-
ly changed in the number of manufacturing structures in the area as well:
the fulling mills increased from four to 11, a figure that, according to the
Anagrafi Venete,⁴ remained unvaried until 1775, and which increased in the
1780s and 1790s, thanks to the new concessions granted by the Provveditori
sopra i beni inculti (Panciera 1988, 18), reaching 22 structures at the end of
the century (Fontana 1986, figure 34a). Around 200 looms were working
between 1766 and 1775, increasing to almost 300 at the end of the 1770s,
and 464 at the end of the century (Panciera 1988, 52). A similar growth is
seen in the other manufacturing structures – along with the population
level, as we observed in table 1.1: if in 1564 there were just three raisers
in Schio, between 1766 and 1775 there were a dozen mill wheels for the
raising of woollen clothes, becoming 23 in the 1790s (Fontana 1986, figure
34a). Moreover, in 1789 there were 13 garment finishers (in 1564 there were
just four of them), while the increase of dyeing plants was more contained:
theyremainedfiveatleastuntiltheendofthe1770s,increasingtosix atthe
end of the century (Fontana, 1986, figure 34a). However, as anticipated, it
would be belittling to limit the analysis on the evolution of the woollen sec-

⁴The Anagrafi di tutto lo Stato della Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia are statistical surveys
produced by the Republic of Venice between 1766 and 1795 in order to register the popu-
lation level in each village and town of the state, the composition of the families, and the
number of ecclesiastics, together with the number and the type of animals and manufac-
turing structures. On this extraordinary source, see Ferrari (2011).

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