Cosmopolitan Networks in Commerce and Society 1660–1914

MONIKA POETTINGER
But Swiss and German merchants did not merely channel factors
of production from abroad into Lombardy’s traditional and profitable
silk sector. They also introduced a completely new and foreign
production process to Milan, namely, the mechanical spinning and
printing of cotton. This investment clearly went against the dictates
of economic opportunity and profitability. Whereas investing in the
production and refinement of silk was compatible with Lombardy’s
comparative advantages, cotton was a sector in which the Italian
region possessed no natural aptitude. Cotton was not locally grown
like silk, and had to be imported from the Far East, Egypt, New
Orleans, or India. Historically, production had never spread outside
the districts of Monza and Gallarate and was limited to hand-made
and home-made fustians and bombazines. 34 Once a flourishing area
of manufacturing, it suffered badly under Spanish rule and never
really recovered. 35 In order to reintroduce and mechanize this ailing
sector, both state intervention and the ‘violent operation’ of a merchant
network were needed.
In 1781 the Austrian government took a first step towards making
Lombardy an attractive location for entrepreneurial migration by
passing a decree abolishing all existing discrimination against non-
Catholics, permitting them to practise their religion in private, and
allowing them to hold public office. 36 This was a legislative intervention
deliberately designed to attract entrepreneurial capital from
abroad, mainly from Switzerland. In addition, tailor-made state
assistance in the forms of tariffs, tax exemptions, and incentives were
offered to specific entrepreneurs to set up cotton-spinning mills and
home-weaving networks.
Replacing economic incentives with state inducements proved to
be a successful strategy. A young merchant–manufacturer of German
34 Bombazines were twilled or corded dress materials of worsted/silk or
worsted/cotton; while fustians consisted of worsted/cotton velvet.
35 On the history of the cotton industry see Giovanni Frattini, Storia e statistica
della industria manifatturiera in Lombardia (Milan, 1856), 92. In modern historiography
the principal work on cotton in Lombardy remains Sergio
Zaninelli, L’industria del cotone in Lombardia dalla fine del Settecento all’unificazione
del Paese (Turin, 1967).
36 This decree, dated 17 Oct. 1781, is to be found in Archivio della Biblioteca
Trivulziana (hereafter ABT), Fondo Materie, busta 850.
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