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In 1750, Bourbon King Charles VII and his son Ferdinand I, builders of Caserta’s Reggia (Royal Palace), chose to turn their hunting lodge at San Leucio into a silk factory. They maintained the elegant rooms for their family, and built houses for the silk artisans across the narrow street. All had a commanding view of Caserta and the Reggia from the belvedere. The artisans, while given an advantageous lifestyle, were nonetheless constrained to remain with the factory their entire lives or suffer the consequences. Italy benefited enormously as it soon produced the most magnificent silk of the era.
The factory, now a UNESCO World Heritage site (1997), has been turned into a museum. On display are full-size replicas of the machines used to spin the dyed thread onto reels, patterned after a water-powered model by Leonardo Da Vinci. Also available are several fascinating old looms which used computer-like punch cards to dictate the patterns. The shuttle was released by the weaver once the pattern had been coded. For the first time, silk for furniture, elegant wall coverings in palazzi, and clothing was able to be made industrially.
Many in San Leucio recall with fondness the noblesse oblige approach taken by King Ferdinand, implementing many social reforms in this utopian town of his called Ferdinandopoli. Then again, he also practiced the droit de seigneur, giving him the right to all brides on their wedding night!
– Kindly contributed by Gretchen and Peter Bloom, ItalianNotebook.com readers. Many thanks!
I enjoy reading the ItalianNotebook.com travel suggestions on my e-mail. The e-mails would be more useful to me if you included a brief description or small map to show where each of the highlighted places is located in Italy. As an occasional traveler to Italy I still am not familiar with some of the places you discuss. Better location information would make it easier to plan my next trip.
Thanks, Tom
Of interest to today’s tourists, who should definitely visit the palace in Caserta and the “Utopian” San Leucio, is that there are still silk mills in the town, they make luxurious fabrics for big-name textile companies like Scalamandre, and they have CLOSE OUT STORES. Sometimes they are incredible bargains!
Thank you for posting this! We visited this town but the museum was not open. I would love to have gone inside to see all of these ancient looms!! I especially loved the gardens at Caserta and the tour of the castle. If you have time in the area, I also recommend stopping in Caserta Vecchia – a wonderful medieval hilltop town. (good suggestion about including maps or descriptions about locations – I will keep this in mind on future notes I write)