ABSTRACT
In this historiographical perspective, an analysis of the conflicts and norms of the silkmakers' guild in Naples seems to me particularly fruitful, on account of the specific attributes of this guild: ( 1) it existed uninterruptedly on the territory over a long period (from 1465 to 1821) and was of notable importance for the urban economy (up to the first decades of the eighteenth century), enabling us to follow the most significant long term transformations in the world of work and at the same time to identify the characteristic features of the urban reality; (2) it embraced both the 'liberal' crafts (such as the merchants) and the 'mechanical' crafts (such as the weavers, dyers and so on), two worlds and cultures which collaborated but which also came into conflict. In such situations of conflict we can perceive some of the practices and values underlying the normative framework that accompanied the guild's evolution; (3) finally, since the silkmakers' guild was from its inception closely linked to the government, analysis of its conflicts enables us to verify the degree of integration between the spheres of corporate labour and political power in the Neapolitan context.
