“We’ve basically remained the last ones standing in Italy, so it’s important for us to keep our ancestors’ tradition alive”: that is, the tradition of velvet production in Venice. These are the words Alberto Bevilacqua, Tessitura Luigi Bevilacqua’s CEO, used to describe the peculiarities of this weaving mill in a video.
But why is it so important to preserve this tradition?
The long story of velvet production in Venice
Towards the half of the 16th century, there were 1,200 weavers in Venice, more than double from the century before. But now there’s only one left producing velvet: Tessitura Bevilacqua. Why have the others vanished into thin air?
They had to close, just like all the other guilds in Venice, in 1806, due to a decree by Napoleon. As a consequence, many of them lost the necessary know-how on the manufacturing of luxury fabrics.
Some of them, though, managed to rise from these ashes, and one of them was Tessitura Bevilacqua. Thanks to the idea Luigi Bevilacqua and his associate Giovanni Battista Gianoglio had: recovering some looms dating back to the 18th century to create a new weaving mill in 1875.
A textile tradition dating back to the 15th century
We don’t know the real reason why Luigi came up with this idea, but maybe his family tradition helped it. Since it seems that Bevilacquas have had a finger in the pie of Venetian fabrics for quite some time. Take Giovanni Mansueti’s word for it. Pardon, brush.
Indeed, in 1499 Giovanni Mansueti, a Venetian painter, made a painting, The arrest of St. Mark from the Synagogue, with the names of its purchasers. Including a certain Giacomo Bevilacqua, weaver. So, the Bevilacqua family had been dealing in fabrics well before Luigi arrived.
In order not to break this century-old chain, we keep on telling what we make. And there’s no better way to tell a story than with a video.
Our history in a video
This time, the video where we tell our story was made by Great Big Story, the video network of CNN. Their home base is in New York, but their cameras travel all around the world, from India to the Mississipi, to tell news and curious facts in a few minutes.
Ready to step inside Tessitura Bevilacqua? Enjoy watching it!
