THE "DARK" MIDDLE AGES?/3

After the year 1000, one of the most powerful engines of the economic boom lead by Italian city-states was textile manufacturing.

Weavers and dyers joined into influential corporations, and each city featured its own production specialties: Florence, Bologna and Milan in wool; Naples  in hemp and linen; Venice,  Florence and Genoa in silk.

Venice in particular, which came to be known as the “magical birthplace of color” with its strong ties to the Orient, specialized in the production of ” panno d’oro” (golden cloth) from the Byzantine era and “Venetian scarlet“, exported all over Europe.