Manifatture e pluriattività tra montagna e collina. Le origini della lavorazione della paglia nel territorio di Marostica

Straw-hat making was one of the new productions introduced in the Vicenza’s mountains between the Renaissance and the eighteenth-century pro- toindustrial revival. The essay focus on the origin and the diffusion of this man- ufacture, based on a poor and widely available material and on cheap female work carried out at home, during the seventeenth century. By using notarial records and probates it is possible to trace the spread of straw-hat making in the lowest slopes of the Asiago highlands north of the town of Marostica. The same sources highlight the complex vertical articulation of the alpine economy, more dependent from sheep rearing and the exploitation of woods in the high- er parts, from mixed agriculture as well as straw-hat production in the lower ones. Fiscal exemptions granted to the Asiago highlands, but not to Marostica, played a fundamental role in the localization of manufacturing and trade as they led successful merchants and pedlars to stay in the mountain and not to move to the town, as it happened elsewhere in the countryside