La produzione della seta in Calabria. Storia, paesaggio e architetture nell’area dello Stretto di Messina, XVI-XX secolo

In Calabria, people have exploited the natural vocations since ancient times, starting from the transformation of the subsoil resources and, above all, through a very diversi- fied agriculture, favored by a varied climate within small distances. In this context, seri- culture has had a strong diffusion throughout the region, relying on a strong dissemina- tion of mulberry trees in the countryside and developing a well-established production system since the 16th century. The study focuses on the area of the Strait of Messina and proposes an interpre- tation of the silk production system as a productive landscape: the author places em- phasis on the multiple connections of silk production with the processes of transfor- mation of the territory, with the variations of use of land, with the evolution of the layouts of working spaces, with the improvement of knowledge in the agricultural and technological fields, with the role of local communities, and with the development of the transport system at a local and global level. Furthermore, the study highlights the constant search for a balance between local dynamics and external factors: on the one hand, there are the rural activities and crafts, the domestic dimension of work, the subsistence economy, local markets; on the other, there are the industrialization and technological innovations, a new rational organization of the production, and the international market. From this perspective, the conservation of the heritage connected to these process- es, essentially made up of the few traces of the plants rebuilt after the 1908 earthquake, therefore, has a key role in the economic relaunch of the territory in a history-based dimension.