ABSTRACT
For more than a century, from half way through the seventeenth century to the re-formation of the Arte della seta (Art of silk) organised in the 1760s, Lucchese silk manufacturing seems to be characterised by immobility. This impression could be why historians have not taken any interest in this period until now. 1 Such disinterest, therefore, did not acknowledge the peculiarities of an epoch which had reached an awareness of the complex and contradictory problems concerning the fundamental sector of the Lucchese economy. However, this epoch did not know how to (and could not) deal with them and was bound by the necessity of bringing corporative conflicts back to the traditional and reassuring 'social ecology', upon which the subsistence of the small state was founded? I believe that the stereotype of immobility must be
1 Studies on the first half of the eighteenth century do not exist. For the second half of the eighteenth century, the most recent contribution is that of Banti (1986). Simonini's essay (1957) is of some use; in which, however, the ample recourse to sources is not always sustained by their correct interpretation. There are also some references made to Lucchese weaving in the articles by Battistini (1988, 1992, 1995) dedicated to mulberry-growing and reeling, and in Paola Massa's considerations (1993). As for seventeenth century events, there is precious news and accurate observations made by Mazzei ( 1977). Great importance is held in the treatise Del ristabilimento dell 'Arte della seta (The reestablishment of the Art of silk) by Giovanni Attilio Amolflni, preparatory of the 1767 re-formation (cf. the Archivio di Stato of Lucca [ASL], Archivio Arnolfini 13 8). The 'history of the trading of cloths', that the economist traces as a preamble for his re-formation proposals, today represents the most organic reflection on the silk industry in Lucca in the early modem age. They are pages, still unpublished, just as abundantly cited as scarcely critically examined. In this context, according to Amolflni's point of view, 'Art of silk' means the entire world of silk production. For a detailed examination of the institutional framework see § 3. 2 I believe, according to an interpretative hypothesis already put forward in a previous piece of work (Sabbatini, 1996), that for the societies of the ancien
substituted by the image of an economy (and a society) 'marching on the spot', a century-old and exhausting march which, even if it was unable to lead anywhere, it was in any case the sign of profound yet subterranean changes.
