1Central to this work is a product. We all know that things have a broader significance than their mere utility: man-made goods comprise and express a dense web of semantic relations1.

2I propose taking a trip through the universe of invention, by which I mean not a machine or a manufacturing process but a product. I will be illustrating the techniques, materials and colours that go to form and distinguish man-made artefacts, but also the intrigues, threats and superstitions lurking around the artefacts themselves, to which, in my view, they intimately belong. I am sure that a vital thread connects these disparate factors. The passing of time has sapped the strength of this thread: the objects have lost the cultural and emotional tie-ups they once contrived to weave about them. Invention, originality, excellence, supremacy: such are the essential ingredients in reconstructing the « experience » of a product.

3In our case it is silk voile: a fabric whose history and fame is linked to a specific place of origin. In Ancien régime Europe a host of goods are described, lived with, marketed, and come to express an interplay of original local factors. The quality of the raw materials found on the spot, the know-how, the climatic factors, all form an original mix amounting at times to an invention. If glassware is Venetian glassware, and velvet comes from Genoa, then voile belongs to Bologna.

4Burrowing among regional government archives one sometimes comes across evidence of these strong territorial connections. Often the resolute, dramatic tones employed suggest a rhetorical model rather than any real state of affairs. But in our case there is something more, for the criminal archives of Bologna yield one rich documentary source2.

Leakage of know-how: a state affair

5The time is the early decades of the eighteenth century. Before the « Torrone » judges’ tribunal there appeared an official reporting a plot that threatened the town’s economy. A group of conspirators were planning to export one of the most precious local secrets: silk voile production.

6At the head of the conspirators was a small-time merchant, Ludovico Aureli, who was canvassing workmen and artisans to follow him in this enterprise. The news caused great alarm: silk voile manufacturing was a major resource for the community. Those traitors to their country, as they were called, had set their sights on the town of Venice, and opened negotiations with a view to obtaining favourable terms.

7On 5^th May 1727 the Venetian magistrates’ bench of the Cinque Savi alla Mercanzia recorded entering into negotiations with a « secret person » on the subject of introducing Bologna-style voile manufacturing. The anonymous intermediary was one Giovanbattista Fanelli, a Milanese « married in Venice » and living in Bologna. The monopoly, that is a licence to sole production rights, would be issued in his name, though he was a mere figurehead in point of fact3.

8The terms set by the Bolognese at the negotiating table were quite precise:

• a twenty-five year monopoly on production throughout Venetian territory.

• complete tax exemption on the importing of « any kind of utensil serving the said manufacture » and, since « the main material […] is silk », an exemption claimed of 2 000 pounds for the first year, 4 000 and 6 000 for years two and three and 10 000 per year for the remaining years. All this plus the reservation that if a larger amount of raw material were needed, the excess should incur a half rate of import dues.

• tax exemption on voile exportation.

• the possibility to recruit labour from hospitals and charitable associations, « the manufacturers offering and committing themselves to bring in women teachers to the town to give instruction ».

• a blockade on voile importation from Bologna as soon as the new production line was able to meet the Venetian demand.

• guarantees as to spinning in the form of an undertaking by spinner foremen to work the silk « necessary thereunto » to the requirements of the merchants.

• tax exemption on all domestic furnishings brought in by the applicants and workforce for the duration of the monopoly.

• tax exemption on silk if sent for spinning to the mainland through « abundance of work »; this even when the spinning machines belonged to the merchants themselves.

• a guarantee that the merchants and their workmen would be independent of any Venetian guild.

9The formal reply to these demands came on 5^th June of the same year, 1727, direct from the Five Elders who had gone into the matter in their capacity as « judges appointed to the Bolognese voile factory ». The Venetians agreed to the Bologna merchants’ conditions in full4.

10On receiving the guarantees they had sought, the conspirators went to work. They first sent off to Venice the tools of the trade. The voile looms were dismantled and put in five sacks, the whole operation shrouded in the utmost secrecy. In order to pass off the looms as dismembered parts of five « travelling bedsteads », the five bags were shipped along with corresponding mattresses.

11A chapter of adventures would ensue, all pointing to the stealth of the conspirators and the Bologna authorities’ determination to scupper the plan. Though the absconding artisans were able to get their equipment to Venice and raise a workforce to begin production operations, the Bolognesi managed to recover the tools from the Venice customs and persuade the work squad to return5.

12Although the episode of 1727 still leaves room for speculation (for instance, what game was the Venetian government really playing beneath their docile acceptance of all the Bolognese traitors’ conditions?), one thing is clear: to the Bolognese authorities imparting this particular know-how was tantamount to disclosing a major state secret. But what exactly was it about the technique of voile manufacturing that made it so inimitable – or, with inside assistance, so imitable? For a closer look at the details of the process we should put the clock forward forty years and peer into an extraordinary commercial archive recording the manufacturing and marketing of silk voile « alla bolognese ». Forty years after the attempt to smuggle Bologna voile to Venice, the documents show us an identical picture of this outstanding and exclusive local product. There are many references to crisis in the sector, yet at the same time new commercial and manufacturing ventures are always springing up.

13Such is the case of Domenico Maria Bettini. After serving in the oldest and most prestigious « voile factories », Domenico felt he had learned his trade and, despite his youth, applied to set up his own workshop.

The Bettini Archives

14On the first of September 1767, nineteen year-old Domenico Bettini entered in his cash register the sum of 35 000 lire provided by his father. It was the opening of business by a new Bologna voile merchant6.

15In his « voile manufacturing shop », the merchant purchased raw materials, outsourced the processing of them down to the spun thread stage, which he then handed to the weavers, piece-work women who wove to his instructions.

16Bettini invested far and away the greatest part of his capital in silk. For 1200 lire spent on fixed outlay, almost 32 000 was used to buy raw « homegrown » silk, which would be sent to the caldierani for reeling trattura and to the spinners for spinning into yarn7.

17Voile manufacturing is largely an accounting term: we know that no actual site corresponded to the name. But the book-keeping « invention » forms one of the few clues to a ghost or cottage industry. The women’s work was checked by a shop employee who kept an administrative record. Besides the raw materials, the merchant provided part of the equipment needed to work at the loom: this is what Bettini calls « dead capital for voile manufacture ».

18There was no single type of voile; the term applies to cloth under a range of forms which go to make quite different products. The present paper illustrates some of these differences8.

19Until lately only one sample was known, a nineteenth-century one attached to a copyright application on a new puckering technique. In all likelihood it demonstrates what results could be achieved by the new technique and is thus only an indirect clue to eighteenth-century production. This used to be the only material trace of a product line that was to engross the Bolognesi throughout the modern era.

20The Bettini archive fills in this gap though its evidence should be taken as indirect only: except for one case, the samples it gives us cannot be certified as Bologna voile. Attached to letters from various customers commissioning stock from the merchant, one finds by way of example some forty « displays » (mostre), that is samples, which served as a reference. In technical language that is only partly coded, or only partly known, they provide a yardstick for the quality required. One might think they were fragments cut from previous samples received from the same or other Bologna merchants. But one cannot be sure they are not the product of non-Bolognesi. The content of the letters hardly ever throws light on this point. The customers simply specify the details of the sample they are referring to, the colour or selvage or kind of weave, and so on, without stating the provenance.

21With these limitations in mind, the fragments may be taken as a significant point of reference. There is an acceptable degree of approximation, since the illustrative function of the samples accompanying a written order justifies us in thinking that the Bologna production was quite similar to the clients’ samples.

22I have chosen the most representative of the various « displays ». As figures 1-5 show, they are simple fabrics, but less obvious than might otherwise have been imagined of cottage industry as reconstructed from written documents alone. On the various weaving patterns, I refer the reader to the files compiled by an expert historian of fabric, Marta Cuoghi Costantini.

23Broadly speaking it is a form of taffeta, more or less close-woven. The interlacing is rudimentary, though the first impression of simplicity does scant justice to the reality. Weaving is central to what is a complex production process. The first problem is obtaining a tough fine yarn. The exquisite lightness of voile is due to use of a single size of yarn, alike for the warp and the weft. The quality of the silk and the twisting technique are highlighted in the simplicity of the weave. Therein, I think, lies the peculiarity of the Bolognese product. The way the loom is mounted and the weaving process itself again speak of special skill: it cannot be easy to work on such thin yarn, while the loom has to be able to space the interlacement evenly and openly.

24Some idea of how weaving and the loom were prepared can be gained from tab.1 which gives the voile heights and details of the combs. Voile height is rendered by the mysterious word schiuma (perhaps suggesting tooth density rather than the more obvious but meaningless « foam » or « lather ») and is measured numerically as with all descriptions of voile: one finds « voile in… » or « schiuma number… ».

25Voiles are made to codified rules that Bettini and his counterparts take for granted or help out in part with « displays ». In the exchange between merchant and customer these numbers suffice as an explanation. The same could not be said for me. To begin with, the numbers made no sense at all.

26Among various Bolognese Guild papers, I came across a table relating « lather » numbers to comb tooth numbers and voile weights9. Another archive series yielded up a paper « yardstick » for the various « lathers»10. At this point I was able to express voile heights in centimetres. Such information is useful as a first start in pin-pointing the finer details of this product, but in supplying us with brand-new insights it throws open brand-new problems too. The comb teeth prove extraordinarily fine, the difference in density often being minimal. Comb manufacturing proves to have employed mechanical precision of a watchmaker order outside the Bolognese tradition. The range of heights seems to allude to rigidly codified user patterns of which we know little.

27A tangible, concrete idea of yarn thinness and potential manufacturing snags is given by the comb density per centimetre. I can just picture setting up the loom, the hands, the light, the eyes and age of the workers11.

28Variations in height go in small steps but lead to a considerable overall range, from a few centimetres to about a metre.

29Evidently these products were destined for a number of uses. Alongside the problem of defining the product arises that of defining demand. The best way of doing so once again turns to concrete instances. By analyzing the orders Bettini received, one can reconstruct a fairly detailed picture.

30Tables 2 and 3 suggest that colour and texture are much of the time not specified.

31It can be seen from the slips accompanying a « display » that the selvage (or selvedge) height is an item of luxury on a voile. It involves extra work and adds to the cost. Customers tend to be very precise in specifying this particular requirement. Commissions often include a paper yardstick to define the selvedge wanted. The extent to which this variable ranges affords little food for deduction: the « ordinary » size is by far the commonest, along with a large amount of unspecified cases.

32Table 4 refers to the last phase in voile manufacturing, crisping. The majority of cases give no specific indication, which leaves me unable to make out a trend.

33What I can go into more closely is the technique itself of crisping. Voile crêpe has the appearance shown in figures 1, 2, 4 and 5. To achieve this effect a special procedure is applied to the already woven voile. My source is an anonymous document which set out to prove, against the view of certain unidentified « opposing parties », that crisping is a highly complex process and hence carries a high cost12. « Crisping » it says is the most important and laborious task « in the whole trade ». It is hard to learn. With the other phases of the job, « one glance and they’re done »; but it takes years to pick up the technique of crisping. Two people are needed: a master and a helper. The master stands all the time, the helper is seated. The source maintains that the master does most of the hard work, and that he should only earn just over twice the assistant’s pay is out of all proportion13.

34Crisping begins by soaking the voile in a large vat (caldara) where « gall is boiling to make a bath for the voile to be put in ». The voile must boil for about two hours. The ratio of voile quantity to gall quantity should be two to one: half a pound of gall for every pound of voile. When boiling is finished, the voile stays soaking in the gall for several hours. Our source says it « stays there a part of the night ». At this point the dyer may get to work, if the voile is to be dyed, making a new bath based on vitriol in the proportion of four ounces to each pound of voile. « Galled » and, if necessary, dyed voile is dried and then « given the gum that it may gain body ». Again the proportion is four ounces gum to one pound voile. Once « gummed, the voile is gathered together and then « kneaded the way one kneads bread dough ». When this stage is finished, the voile is draped over beams (subbi) – a particularly delicate operation which is performed by the foreman or an experienced master. Two assistants take part: one holds the voile up off the ground and the other winds it onto the beam. Thus arranged, the voile is put « in the stove » (or oven) for some hours, then unrolled from the beam and straightaway folded with the help of an iron bar14.

Usage, fashion and death

35The last point in my description of voile characteristics is height. Let us return to the beginning and take a concrete look at how Bettini and his customers behave over what I see as one of the main variables.

36In tab. 5, I have arranged the data in descending order to highlight the most frequent measurements. Only four measurements exceed 10 %. The intermediate size 22 proves the highest value, followed by two high sizes and one low. Evidently these products are destined for quite different uses.

37This opens a difficult chapter in historical reconstruction, the sphere of voile use and, more generally, the nature of the demand. As a first approximation, I should say that a broad segment of voile use is absorbed by hairstyling and clothing. A customer from Paris asks for voile « of the lowest numbers to put in the hair ». One imagines it being used for ribbons or a net to deck and hold in place a hairstyle15. White voile, schiuma 18, seems to have been a specific requirement of nuns, who used it as a « head veil ». The nuns prove to be expert and exacting customers: the slightest flaw and they reject the piece – which, given the height of it, is only suitable for this market and can thus be written off as unsaleable16. Again for black « broad selvage » voile of schiuma 22 I found a suggestion that nuns were some of the habitual users. In this case Bettini’s customer does not refer to the destination of his order. It is Bettini himself in reply who assures the customer that the material is « perfect », adding: « knowing as I do how hard the good sisters are to please ». Clearly, knowing the customer and/or properties of the voile ordered automatically makes Bettini think the final users must be nuns17. For « grieving bonnets », a form of « brown » mourning headwear, a Niçois customer asks for « a bolt of white crêpe » to serve as a trim18. In this case the height is not specified, but logically it would be a low number.

38Mourning is a key factor in the demand for voile and especially crêpe. When news got out that His Imperial Majesty had died, the merchant interpreted it as an opportunity for « extraordinary and plentiful commissions for crêpes ». Bettini himself hopes that the Bologna merchants will know how to respond to the favourable situation, without giving way « to the usual follies […] and then whining for years to come, since not every year do Emperors die»19.

39But the demand for voile is not confined to clothing. Yellow voile of schiuma 22 serves for « tobacco grounds » (frolloni), a kind of sieve therefore20. Another yellow voile is draped in cafés « to cover the display cases from flies»21. White and yellow voile may go to make mosquito netting, while yellow again is needed « for medicinal use of cinchona (china) » as a filter22. Again, voile for « industrial » use should not make us think of an undifferentiated product, levelled down in quality. China voile, mentioned previously, must be « very fine » in weave, while for snuff grounds one needed the « best voile»23. One comes across a reference to bolts of finest voile, « excellent for sifters », while another letter refers to a « riddle » (crivellone), which seems to correspond to an open-weave voile of poor quality, not suitable for sieves, and hence put to other uses24.

40So what are the sectors that use this extralight product, at once so simple and so complicated ? Examples from customers’ letters supply a few concrete cases that illustrate the range of uses. And Bettini himself gives a concisely effective description. « Commerce » in voile is regulated by three factors: « Usage, fashion and death. When prices are excessive, usage slackens, fashions alter and the princes’ and commoners’ extravagances are curtailed or abolished»25. If we take these words in the context of the examples provided by customer letters, they become easier to decipher. Usage is employment in manufacturing processes, which boils down to a series of sieves; under which heading we can classify mosquito netting, I would say. Under fashion I would definitely put the various trimmings, though I am less sure how to view the religious demand. Usage or fashion? Death most probably means mourning and is the easiest term to interpret.

Voile broadens out and goes in for yellow

41The range of the demand suggests it would be interesting to observe how voile « qualities » evolve with time. Here the order files helped my research.

Tab. 6 – Voiles sold by Bettini (1767-1790) by height (schiuma) and year (1767 = 100).

42Let us begin with voile height, which the sources call schiume. Table 6 shows the pattern for two groups of schiume: from 2 to 24 and from 24 to 40. Imade these groupings to highlight the phenomenon, but my choice in so doing was by no means arbitrary. It was again in the words of one of Bettini’s customers that I found the clue. When Natale Straulino wrote from his native city, Augusta, in January 1768, amongst other things he noted what voile heights interested him most. It was the « high » numbers from 26 upwards26. Itried grouping the data on this basis and found a significant trend, illustrated in table 6. In the course of time the sale of higher numbers increases.

43This pattern fits in with the merchant’s expectations. At the start of his enterprise he seems to get the lower, less remunerative voile commissions, pending orders for higher numbers. In a 1768 letter Bettini wrote: « secondly, please let me have your commissions for high numbers, since in such small ones, especially of these proportions, I lose too much capital»27.

44Let us now take a look at the colour question. Table 7 gives the voile frequency distribution over the years by colour. Along with a large number of unspecified cases (almost 40 %) one detects that yellow and black predominated, forming more than half the total.

Tab. 7 – Voiles sold by Bettini (1767-1790) by colour and year. Percent values (annual total = 100).

45In the course of time the patterns for yellow and black were to invert their trend. The early period, dominated by black, is followed by a longer second period where yellow takes the lead. Later years see a less clearcut pattern, though as table 10 shows, the weight of unspecified cases here affects the picture greatly, as they now comprise the majority.

46It is not easy to comment on these patterns. One is struck by the parallel course of heights and colours. The three-way division proposed by the merchant might offer a handle for interpretation: « usage, fashion, death ». In the cases I have quoted on voile destination, yellow heads the list in terms of « usage ». One idea might be that the prevalence of yellow, combined with a growth in height numbers, points to some concentration of production around the latter function.

47The samples I have worked on afford a code for interpreting what proves to be a much more varied product than might be expected. But does it amount to a manufacturing secret as such?

48No one secret exists in this case. There are procedures, consolidated in time, know-how from an oral tradition based on direct observation. That there is a secret is the essence of the « value added », a hallmark of the genuine product.

49Clearly the Venetian authorities were prepared to make unusual concessions in order to breake the monopoly or at least to damage a neighbouring state. For their part, the Bolognesi went to great lengths to nip the operation in the bud, boldly contriving to have the looms stolen back from the Venetian customs. Yet when all the adventure had died down, they dropped all charges against the would-be traitors, including the leader.

50Something there is to protect, and something to steal, but hardly the classic technical secret, one is forced to conclude. My own conclusion is that there was, as it were, competition over the « certificate of origin ». The language of ‘treachery’ and ‘secrecy’ was more metaphorical than literal.