Page 48 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

Giulio Ongaro and Edoardo Demo

‘called the spinning building,’ and in 1762 it was owned by the Scapin fam-
ily, but we do not know if it was still used for silk processing. Certainly,
Schio remained at the centre of the raw silk trade, given also its being at
the border of the Imperial provinces of Rovereto and Trento, where during
the entire eighteenth century, tonnes of Vicentine raw silk were smuggled
(Panciera 2014, 144; 2004, 266; Ciriacono 1983, 68; Fontana 1985, 83).

Some Final Remarks
In the previous pages we described the dynamism of the economy of Schio
during the early modern period, from the first decades of the fifteenth cen-
tury up to the birth of the modern woollen industry between the end of
the eighteenth century and the beginning of the following one. We also
showed that the long manufacturing tradition, which culminated in the
first decades of the nineteenth century when Schio became one of the first
(and very few) examples in the Italian area of industrialization of the tex-
tile sector on the British model, was strongly intertwined with a correlated
long-lasting importance of the entrepreneurial families that led this eco-
nomic evolution. The Toaldo, Zamboni, Canneto, Vanzo, and Baretta fam-
ilies went through the various steps of the economic development of the
village, some of them from the fifteenth century to the era of industrializa-
tion, maintaining their leadership within the community. These families
were able to preserve their political and economic power across the cen-
turies, adapting their entrepreneurial activities to the evolving economic
situation of the area, diversifying their investments at least until the sec-
ond half of the eighteenth century; they accumulated the starting capitals
thanks to the land ownership and the cereals trade (and smuggling) direct-
ed toward the Imperial territories, then flanking these activities with the
participation in mining companies (first for silver mining, then for kaolin),
especially between the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of
the following one. Then, they consolidated their position and economic rel-
evance thanks to the trade of raw silk, and woollen yarn and clothes. In this
sense, they were able to occupy the economic space freed by the city, taking
advantage of the crisis of the woollen production within the urban walls
during the sixteenth century. This adaptation and diversification of the in-
vestments of the rural entrepreneurial families did not mean an abandon-
ment of the interests in the mining sector and in the agricultural one, when
wool and silk became the fulcrum of their trade; they continued to operate
in these fields as well, often taking advantage of the same trading routes,
in a context of a strong integrated peasant economy. Certainly, at least in

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