Traces of China: How Chinese Silk Put Venice on the Map

Venice, an architectural wonder, sitting on a series of islands in the Adriatic. Venice was perfectly positioned to serve as a gateway between the East and the West. Over millennia, the exchange of goods and ideas that flowed along the Silk Road, connecting China to Europe, has made it synonymous with luxury, art, and of course, silk. When we talk about silk, we talk about the most noble of all fibers. It is its strength, its beauty, the way it reflects the light. No other fiber can do the same. Rubelli is a prestigious luxury silk manufacturer with showrooms in major cities across the world. The company remains family-run, with its roots and home here in the heart of Venice. Welcome to Capizani Rubelli, the home of Rubelli and the Rubelli Foundation. There to welcome us, actually, there is my great-great-grandfather. He acquired a company which had existed for at least a couple of hundred years before, which continued what had been the glorious art of silk and weaving in Venice. So here, what used to be his home, we gathered a lot of pieces which had been collected mostly by my father, which witness the skill of silk weaving, and particularly what has been woven in Venice. It's not only Venice inherited the art of silk from China, but also Venice was inspired by the East. So is this where the story of silk really begins? This is indeed one of the highlights of the collection. It is over 500 years old. You see how well-preserved, and really tells what you could do with silk. To me, it's a piece of art. Carrying on a very long tradition of silk merchants in Venice, the Rubelli Foundation Collection is home to some of the world's most expensive silks. When you talk about silk in the 14th, 15th, 1600s, you're not talking about textile, you're talking about jewels. They were passed from one generation to another as the most precious belongings. You have to think that with the value of three or four garments, you could buy a palace. Venice is said to be the most Western of the Eastern city because its beauty really takes origin from the art and aesthetics from the East. Tell me about this. This is extraordinary. This is quite an intriguing piece because it was embroidered telling the story of a garden to be cut and attached to a dress, and it has never been cut. How would people have understood all the Chinese imagery? I think they just were enchanted by them. I'm not really sure that they understood what they meant, but they love this exotic. We always love what comes from far away. Silk began its life in China approximately 5,000 years ago. The exact circumstances of its discovery is now a story of ancient Chinese legend. Well, we know that the Chinese were the first to understand how a cocoon could be unrolled and create a beautiful piece of fabric, which is called silk. The fabric then took around 3,000 years of refinement before finding its way to European shores. Silk first arrived in Italy at the time of the Roman Empire. We can imagine how they liked it before it was wool, linen, mat. You could have something shiny. You moved it around and it looked like you were a whole jewel. I think that was really a sign of power. Fragments of these early textiles survive to this day and can be found deep in the archives of the Palazzo Mocenigo Museum. This is a great, precious collection. Wow. I organised some pieces to demonstrate the evolution we have in 700 after Christ. It's all silk and decorative elements. Where did this piece of silk come from? It came from China, because it's a fragment that came here. We don't know why, but this is a study of a textile, meaning that it is a China textile. So how did it get here? Would it have been traded along the Silk Road? Yes, it could be. These early examples demonstrate that silk weaving was not merely a craft, but an art form and creative medium where skilled weavers expressed their creativity through intricate designs. What are the oldest samples that you have here? This one. This one? Found in the tomb. And it's very important for the symbol. It's the unique demonstration of decorative art. Do we know exactly how old this is? Yes, 400, 500 years before the birth of Christ. The exact origins of this ancient piece remain a mystery, but its age demonstrates how early the Chinese art of silk weaving was being embraced by cultures far and wide. Why is it important for us to keep all of these historical bits of fabric? It is important because it demonstrated that the textile is the first step of communication. Such communications would manifest in patterns and motifs transmitting cultural messages and spiritual ideas. In reality, it is the tree of life, because from this vase is born the life, and this is the meaning. And you've got the phoenix. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Beautiful. So the fabric is sort of like messages sent back and forward down the Silk Road? Yes, absolutely, because the textile is the paper of communication, and the same happened in other parts of the world. The Silk Road is an ancient trade route linking China with the West that carried goods and ideas between the great civilizations of China and Europe. Its history spans the last 2,500 years. Silk, spices, tea, porcelain, but also traditions and technologies flowed along the route. Exchanges that influenced art, literature, and science, weaving together the cultural tapestry of our modern world. Venice was a city built to protect the inhabitants from the barbarians at the time of the fall of the Roman Empire, and it could have remained a village of fishermen. There's not much else to do around here. Instead, Venetians were smart enough to keep the contact with the Roman Empire of the East and become merchants. But it wasn't until the 12th century that the most famous Venetian merchant on the Silk Road, Marco Polo, picked up the thread. Laura, this is so beautiful. Tell me about where we are right now. What is so important is that Marco Polo came back and wrote about this experience, and making us know these people, these traditions, these cities. In his book, Il Milione, Marco Polo wrote about the Chinese city of Suzhou. They have a big quantity of silk, and all people is working or living in the production and trade of silk. Remarkably, Suzhou had many similarities to Venice, a merchant city connected by canals. It not only had a thriving silk-producing industry, but silk weavers there had also developed techniques far surpassing what could be done in Europe. Like Sioux embroidery, where a single mirrored image or even different images could be viewed from both sides. A lot of merchant from Venice, from Genoa, went so long way to China, but the only one who wrote was Marco Polo. Marco Polo returned from China in 1295, and his tales are credited with boosting the fascination for luxury goods from the East. During this time period, Venice became a thriving center of trade, with wealth pouring in from the exchange of exotic goods. Palaces were bought and sold. Meanwhile, the Chinese tradition of silk farming was already becoming a well-established industry across the north of Italy. Silk is exactly grown as it was done 2,000 more years ago, because it comes from the silk cocoon. You had to feed the silkworm with leaves from the mulberry trees and take care of them and let them grow until the silkworm builds its cocoons around, and at that time you can extract this long, magnificent yarn of silk. Just outside of Venice, CRIA is Europe's largest facility for silkworm research, where Silvia Cappellosa and her team are exploring a range of non-traditional silk applications, from cosmetics to pharmaceuticals. Wow, they're so big. Yeah, because they are at the very end of their larval cycle and now they are ready to spin cocoons. In fact, you can see that in the cocoon, there is a larva inside spinning. So these are all the little silk cocoons here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They will continue until the cocoon is very thick. Sericulture, the cultivation of silkworms to produce silk, was a closely guarded Chinese secret for thousands of years. But from the 6th century, silkworms and their main food source, the white mulberry tree, were moved along the Silk Roads to Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. While historians don't entirely agree on when the Byzantines introduced the white mulberry to Italy, it could have been as early as the 9th century. And by the 12th century, towns like Lucca, Florence and Venice began to build a reputation for producing homegrown, fine Italian silk. This is the typical ancient way, how they have the spinning of the worms and the silkworms made the cocoons between the branches. Did the Italian way of farming the silkworms take inspiration from the Chinese way or did they evolve independently? No, they evolved independently because, you know, at that time, farmers were not in contact with Chinese farmers or technicians. How much silk will each worm spin? In the more productive strain, the thread can reach two kilometres. Per worm? Per worm. As domestic silk production increased, the demand began to shift away from Chinese imports. Italian weavers mastered advanced techniques to create exquisite silk fabrics that were sought after across Europe. At its peak throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, Venice employed 15,000 silk workers. Today, the city is transformed into a cultural haven for modern arts and eager tourists. But the remnants of historic Venice can still be discovered by those who know where to look. Grazie. Hello. Buona giornata. Hello. Hello, buongiorno. Buongiorno, Amelia. Come stai? Look at this. Ah, yes. Wow. This is amazing. Amazing. Queste sono le nostre stoffe. Ma no. Rodolfo Bevelacqua is the current owner of Luigi Bevelacqua, a Venetian silk weaving company that draws on the techniques of the past. Surprisingly, even the ideas of the genius Leonardo da Vinci. Thank you. Grazie. It's like stepping back in time. Inspired by Chinese silk and driven by an insatiable market demand for the fabric, by the 1500s, the Europeans had eventually built the weaving machines needed to make their own. How long would it take to make a piece of silk? La macchina, o la macchina jacquard, è dei primi del 1800. Mentre questo è il più antico strumento della textura Bevelacqua. Ed è un orditoio disegnato da Leonardo da Vinci. Wow. Ed è del 1600. Ed è in funzione almeno una volta alla settimana. Venice specialised again in luxury and when they wove, they did the velvet, the most precious of all textiles, or they wove silk with gold and silver. Look at the colours on this, the way the light comes off the gold is amazing. Velvet is a type of weave characterised by softness, sheen and dense piled fibres. It's been a symbol of nobility and royalty throughout the ages. To this day, Bevelacqua continues this tradition, providing high quality Venetian velvet to prestigious clients, including the Vatican and various royal palaces. And Venice became one of the most skilled places to weave the silk. Highest quality came to Europe, was sold to the courts of Europe and sometimes also back to the East because the technique that the Venetians developed was quite unique. You see how a silk dresses well, not only a beautiful lady, but also a room. It's so room. It gives warmth, it makes it softer and that's what Venetians loved. The 1400s and 1500s are the century of the greatest production of silk textiles in Venice. You had the spinners, you had the dyers, you had the weavers. So all this art really flourished and the wealth of the city, the beautiful building that you still see, some of them are done also because of the wealth coming from silk. The evolving marriage of Chinese inspiration and Italian style has sustained the allure of silk through the ages. Yet the story of silk doesn't end here as these elegant, natural fibers continue to enchant the next generation of Italian designers. What sort of thing is the university known for? I think it's known for its futuristic and forward world mentality. Everyone's got a lot of big ideas. Yes, you're looking for big ideas and new ideas. I am pleased to introduce Leonardo. Hi, little brother. Our master student. So is this your finals project? Yes, yes it is. Beautiful dress. How does silk inspire you in your work? To me, silk is so important as the way I love to design because it is super lightweight but it has a kind of strength. It's a natural fiber so you can dye it. So for example, this is naturally dyed. I don't know, how does it feel to be wearing it? It's very nice. It's very great. And I also, the fact that this is natural, that's beautiful. So yeah, yeah, it feels very good. That's very good. This dress, I think it's an homage to the city of Venice and silk, of course. Thinking about the pleating and the waves and the water in Venice, the colors, the way it moves, the main inspiration comes from that. It makes an amazing ripple when you move. It's very reminiscent of Venice to me. Yeah. When it's a good day. This is a beautiful Venice. This is what I see. It was the only material possible to use if I wanted to achieve a result like that. Yeah, it really flows. You can see the water in it. Very expressive. Thank you. With young designers like Leonardo weaving their own stories into the rich tapestry of silk's history, we can see that the 5,000-year story of silk doesn't end here. Today is quite interesting because the raw materials come from China, designed and woven and developed in Italy, and goes back to China, where it has a special charm. Possibly they found our silks now quite exotic. So maybe things are repeating on the other side as they have happened in the past centuries. Silk is a product of history, culture, and I think the relation based on culture is the only way to understand, really understand each other. I think that silk represents tradition, the culture of the past, but also the wings for the future, dreams, development, technologies. I love silk especially for that. Then when you want something really special in a textile world, there's nothing as special as silk, and it will remain.