Page 38 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

Giulio Ongaro and Edoardo Demo

production of woollen clothes, from the first steps (the fulling process) to
the finishing and the selling. A similar case is the one of the Folco family,
that arose in the second half of the seventeenth century: Ludovico Folco
was the rural merchant who in 1665 earned the highest sum in the province
from his trades (Vianello 2004a, 259). Moreover, in the 1643 tax survey
Pietro Folco is the seventh wealthiest inhabitant of Schio. He owned five
houses with storehouses and 26 fields (around 10 hectares). In 1700 Lu-
dovico and his brothers, sons of Pietro, were the wealthiest inhabitants of
Schio; they owned around 20 houses, two workshops, some chiodare, amill
with three wheels, a structure for the cotonatura (combing) of the clothes
and countless hectares of land (ascs, b. 24, cc. 61 r.–v.; b. 27, cc. 54 r.–58 v.).

The Silk Manufacturing
Moving to silk processing, the second pillar of the textile sector in Schio,
in the previous lines we recalled the presence of spinning plants with mill
wheels in the main millrace of the village in the Sareo district, at least from
1541. Until now historiography ignored the existence of such structures in
the area, appointing the local merchant and entrepreneurs as mere pro-
ducers and traders of raw silk. Actually, the information about the number
of structures, their ownership, and functioning is scarce, but the archival
sources suggest the existence of two spinning/throwing structures in 1541,
one used by an Adan ‘Spinner’ (as he is called in the documents), who paid
a rent to Ambrogio Lodi for the building, and one owned by Geronimo Van-
zo (asvi, Estimo, b. 26, cc. 19 v. and 142 v.). At least one of these structures
remained in activity until 1579, for use by Giuseppe Lodi, who paid a rent
to Giacomo Magrè (ascs, b. 21, c. 141 v.). The 1616 tax survey also refers
to a house in the Sareo district ‘called the spinning building,’ owned by An-
drea Baretta, who purchased it from Pietro Magrè and Francesco Lodi. In
1624 the building was owned by Silvestro Baretta (ascs, b. 22, cc. 31 r. e
69 v.) and in the 1643 tax survey Ludovico Baretta appears as the own-
er of the house, again ‘called the spinning building,’ owned in the past by
Giuseppe Lodi, located behind a building belonging to Lodi himself (ascs,
b. 24, c. 52 r.). The 1700 tax survey confirms this information (ascs, b. 27,
c. 47 v.), as does the 1762 survey, but in the latter the Scapin family owned
the building ‘that was owned previously by Ludovico Baretta’ and ‘former-
ly by Lodi’ (ascs,b.29, c. 116r.).Thesereferencessuggest that thewords
used by the inhabitants of Schio in a petition to the Venetian Provvedi-
tori sopra i beni inculti (dated at the end of the sixteenth century; ascs,
b. 57,fasc. 167, c. 59 v.)are not anexaggeration. Indeed,theywrote:‘al-

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