From informal rules to regulation: the creation of the silk market system in Italy (1815-1914)

Silk was an important strategic sector of the Italian economy in the 19th century that stimulated the emergence of financial brokers, made entrepreneurs willing to take risks, fostered entrepreneurial attitudes, and provided work outside agriculture: a series of “external economies for further industrial development”. Between 1860 and 1890 about 10 million kg of raw silk were processed in Europe per year, four-tenths of which were supplied by Europe itself and the remaining six-tenths from Asia. More than 70 per cent of the European cocoon harvest was made in Italy, which exported, in the twenty years following unification (1861), a quantity of semi-finished silk which was equivalent, in value, to a quota between 40 and 50 per cent of the world total. Much of the Italian production was conveyed to Milan for export. These results were achieved despite the serious silkworm disease which struck cocoon crops, destroying the production of large areas, and forcing Europeans to search for uninfected seeds in Asia. To respond to this challenge, the Italian institutions and entrepreneurs carried out a profound transformation, concerning technology, commerce, credit systems and the organization of the market. Using a broad number of archival documents, together with contemporary printed material, the paper aims to highlight the transformation of the silk market in Italy during the 19th century, analyzing its passage from informal rules, which emerged in the first decades of the century and dominated before Unification, to regulation, laws and institution, which led to a new market system.