Short history
Introduction
La Filanda was put together in 1900 by three associates; Guadagni, Nati and Vespignani. La Filanda would be a Silk company that would produce and sell its products throughout Italy.
The Founders
Gaspare Guadagni, one of the founders of “La Filanda” was the son of Giuseppe and nephew of Gaspare Guadagni, to which a road was dedicated in the section of Biforco in Marradi. During the best years of the Filanda, Guido lived in Torino with his family and with go to Marradi during summertime where he would stay at the part of Filanda where the family would live. Since his teenage years, Guido was into the commercial industry and in the transportation of cocoons, he would transport them on horses with his father. When his father Gaspare started to work on a Filanda in Faenza, Guido followed and made one of his own with Nati and Vespignani.
The Story of “La Filanda”
Before the 20th century, these three friends discovered the area which resulted from the land clearing that help to construct railway station in Marradi, and it was part of the famous “Faentina railway» line that connect the province largest city of Florence in Tuscany with Faenza in Emilia-Romagna.
They chose this place to build la Filanda as there was easy access to water and there was a lot of space. The factory took a few years to build as Guido Guadagni wanted to ensure that the foundations were strong enough as the soil was loose to sustain earthquakes would often occur in those days. In the garden in front of the house, we can still find the rotunda which served as a tub full of water for the steam boiler of the factory. In original tub, there were fish who kept the water clean. An advantage of the factory was that vicinity of railway station, which meant that as soon as the trains arrived with coal, they would directly bring it to the factory. Filanda had several buildings, an administrative building that was used for workers and directory plus some laboraty, the main factour building that host the machinery to spin the silk and warehouse building. The main manufacturing side of the Filanda was significant and important, and attached with chimney. This factory building hosted 300 basins that was always full of hot water that constantly produced steam.
All of the steam would condense at the top below the roof and therefore it would rain inside the factory, for this issue big windows were put in place so that the steam would go out through them. There were no problems with colder outside temperatures, as the warm temperature at main factory side allowed that production continued whole year around. When the time came to collect the cocoons, the factory would close for maintenance awaiting the storage of the cocoons. As silk producation had been labour-intensive work, required long and precise work process, mainly women would work in the factory. As the archive of factory had been destroyed, it couldn’t any longer estimate, how many workers had work at Filanda.
Silk production is a process that involves the cultivation of silkworms and the extraction of their silk fibers to create fabric. First the silkworm cultivation that includes that silkworms are fed with mulberry leaves to spin their cocoons. After a few days, the silkworms spin cocoons around themselves, which are then harvested. As next steps cocoons are boiled in hot water to kill the silkworms and loosen the silk fibers using mainly round basins, made of copper. They were covered with a sorghum brush that moved over the cocoons floating on the water. The “spelaia” was attached to the brush, which was then removed and collected. When the brush was lifted, one could see some cocoons still free because the brush had not found the head and others from which the thread was raised. Then the spinner would take this thread: in a small bowl you would put the cocoons that had been attached, the thread would go through a spinner, which was a most precious object, and went to the reel where the skein was wound.
In this whole process there was a “Filandaia”, Leda Montevecchi, whose role was to slow down the operation and then start it again.
Then came the war and the factory was bombarded. It was an aerial attack by the Germans, they direct the railway lines but missed and hit the Filanda. Only debris remained, a lot ended up in the river. The Filanda was never rebuilt and only the living part of the Filanda remains to this day. Conclusion Overall the Filanda was very important and successful, the reason for its success could perhaps be the reputation of the skill of the embroiderers of Marradi who then went to work at the spinning mill of Marradi.