Prestar le loro opere in stati allieni. Il confine politico del know-how nella messa a punto della trattura serica ‘alla piemontese’ tra Sei e Settecento

The contribution applies micro-historical methodology to the topic of women’s labour. Through the presentation of a case study, it highlights the antecedents and consequences of the disregard for territorial boundaries by Piedmontese spinners between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries – when they were ordered not to seek employment outside the Duchy of Savoy. The abstract nature of the borders, the nebulousness of the state presence at the frontier and the hope, based on these assumptions, of evading controls, led some spinners to replicate already established patterns of professional mobility by seeking work in reeling manufactures located within the duchies of Milan and Mantua. The case study makes it possible to reconstruct the dynamics of border management at a moment when the Piedmont silk industry was undergoing profound transformation and laying the foundations for the future of the Italian and European silk industry.