ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the path taken by artisans from different urban centres between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries. The mastering of the Venetian production techniques in other North-Central Italian cities and the resistance that very often slowed down the diffusion of the product or provoked the introduction of particular techniques, which were for the most part different from the original model. The soap industry was linked to many other artisan industries and had evident points of contact with prominent weaving activities, which were additionally connected to the meat and animal skin economies around the city. The high demand for soap, in combination with the high costs that derived from the Venetian monopoly, drove a production process that was diffused throughout the principal Italian manufacturing centres that were already in existence in the fifteenth century. More precisely, soap production developed in the areas affected by Arabian dominance, starting in the tenth century.
