The Silk Industry of Renaissance Venice.(Review)

Luca Mola, The Silk Industry of Renaissance Venice

Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. xix + 20 figs. + 457 pp. $48. ISBN: 0-8018-6189-6.

For the past half century, economic historians of early modern Europe have had to respond in one way or another to the view that there existed an economic depression during the Renaissance. Lately, the general trend has been to reject this thesis. Just twelve years ago, for example, Judith Brown observed that "a growing number of economic historians no longer subscribe to the depression thesis while most non-economic historians do" ("Prosperity or Hard Times in Renaissance Italy," Renaissance …