Abstract

This essay examines the crisis of Italian sericulture at the beginning of the 20th century and highlights the quantitative and qualitative divergences of production in the two macro-areas of the country. In 1907, entrepreneurs in the industrial triangle pressured the government to resolve the crisis. The government, therefore, began the Inchiesta per le industrie bacologica e serica (better known as Luzzatti’s Inquiry), aimed at identifying the causes of the crisis and possible solutions. After a long period of studies and surveys, the inquiry commission explained that the Italian industry could have resolved the crisis only if a greater quantity of cocoons were available on the internal markets. Therefore, the government asked the entrepreneurs, the public power, and the regions of the North and South, for an important effort of national solidarity, even at the cost of sacrificing profits. According to this program, the South would have increased the production of raw materials, so that companies of the North would have access to low-cost cocoons without resorting to the foreign market. In that historical period, the structural problems underlying the regional gaps even before full industrialization (the low yield on the land and the low commercial profitability of silk products) did not favor the recovery of mulberry cultivation in the South. At the end of the investigation work, the government did not take any measures to support the producers but decided to establish the Consiglio per gli Interessi Serici at the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce with the task of monitoring the silk crisis and the needs of the entrepreneurs. As a matter of fact, the uncertainties of the markets, the arrival of the First World War and the crisis of 1929 did not allow Italian sericulture to recover as much as hoped for.