2023/

1-2

ISBN 978-88-8368-175-2

Lorenzo Avellino

Pag. 155-

186

, DOI 10.17426/R09C06

Keywords: Labour history, working class politics, moral economy, trade guilds, wages.

Abstract: On 26 July 1790, approximately 500 silk weavers stormed the city of Como in what had previously been dismissed as a mere food riot.
Drawing from the weavers’ own accounts, this essay proposes an alternative interpretation of the events that places the uprising within a long history of labour conflicts, both preceding and following the incident.
Specifically, the author analyses the tumult as a critical juncture in a complex negotiation mechanism between work quantity and product quality that emerged in silk manufacturing after the abolition of the guild system.
This analysis casts new light on certain practices by the silk workers, which, although previously disqualified as being dysfunctional to the manufacturing order, are revealed as practical and situated knowledge responding to the work contingencies of the historical moment.