NECESIDADES DE APOYO A LO LARGO DEL CICLO VITAL

The Museo del Patrimonio Industriale (Museum of Industrial Heritage) in Bologna is the first example used in this chapter of a local museum which presents the economic and social history of a city through its collection of objects signifying its long industrial heritage100_{. Among its galleries, which include an exposition on Bologna as a world-}

leading centre in the history of packaging101 _{and another as the place of a rich culture of}

automation, one presents the history of silk production in the early modern period of this medieval city.

The centerpiece of the gallery ‘Bologna dell’acqua e della seta’ (roughly translated to ‘Bologna: the city of water and silk’) is a magnificent structure, the Bolognese silk mill, scaled at 1:2. The model itself is 3,4 meters tall and 2,3 meters in diameter. The technology is fascinating because the machine (called valichi) encompasses multiple stages of silk production: reeling (the process of taking filaments of silk thread from the cocoon), throwing (the process which involves twisting the thread) and winding the threads around bobbins.

100 _{For further information on the museum, its website is a useful source.}

http://www.museibologna.it/patrimonioindustriale/introduzione/51896 (last accessed January 2017). This is the museum of the industrial heritage of Bologna which is managed by the comune, or the municipality of Bologna. It houses original objects and scaled replicas of technological artifacts associated with the history of the city. Galleries include the history of Bologna as a city of silk, automobiles and the packaging industry. It is also interesting to note that the website does not have an English version.

101 _{An earlier PhD dissertation produced at the Department of Philosophy and Communication, University}

of Bologna, written by Matteo Serafini (2011), titled Technological innovation in Emilia-Romagna:

knowledge, practice, strategies, provides detailed history of the packaging industry in the region of

Image 4.1: The bottom part of the model. Notice the reels, the spindles and the thread- woven bobbins. In Carlo Poni’s words, ‘The threads as they came off the bobbins were twisted by flyers, rotating on their own spindles, and were collected in the reels above them.’ The description was that of the mechanism of an early model of this very same Bolognese machine.

Apart from the obvious technical excellence that will grab the attention of technology aficionados, the circular silk mill has a very interesting story to tell. A derivation of the circular Florentine hand-throwing machine, the Bolognese silk mill was a technology that travelled from Lucca, in the hands of the technician Bolognino di Borghesano da Lucca, who substituted manpower with engine (Poni, 1999) in the year 1341. The engine in this case was a waterwheel, in other words the mill was driven by hydraulic power. The memory of the existence of these complex machines as the core of a thriving silk industry was lost because the industry declined and disappeared, for the reasons discussed by the historian Carlo Poni. No material traces remain of this, and reconstruction of the shape of the model was based on a reference drawing from various ‘theatres of machines’ among which was one done in Trento by German architect Heinrich Schickhardt in 1599. The drawings alone could not have achieved the reconstruction; there was also an extraordinary amount of experimental work done, to a large extent based on trial and error, in the attempt to “translate” those drawings into a working machinery. For example, a considerable amount of research had to be carried out on the specufic qualities and properties of the materials used in the construction of the machine.

The powerful centerpiece initiates multiple narratives in this case. Where was the hydraulic power being generated from? What was the source? Bologna of today, at a cursory glance does not seem to facilitate a structure like this, because it does not have a significant source of water power close by. However, the history of the city reveals something quite the contrary: that Bologna was a city of canals well into the nineteenth century, as is evident from the displays (photos, videos and texts) presented in the museum. Using the reconstructed mill as the entry point to the narration, the social life of workers organized around the mills from the medieval times, sketches of their habitation are presented in the story of silk production in Bologna.

Image 4.3: Sketch of the silk mill. Notice how the water flows in from the canals. This water then powers the engine which runs the machinery.

Apart from the centerpiece, the exhibit consists of small scale models of the houses of the mill workers, photographs of Bologna in the old days with the canals and even a simulation of how it must have been for the people carrying their silk goods from the city on their boats to the Adriatic Sea. The use of multimedia is done efficiently to give the visitor a well-rounded story of what it was like in the bygone era.

The key lessons learnt from the gallery of the Museo del Patrimonio Industriale can be summed up in the following points:

• The narration of a story: Every historical event, object, artifact has multiple stories to tell. Trying to tell all of them in an exhibit can make the narration fuzzy. In this case, it was a reconstruction of the social history of Bologna through the prism of production of silk and the growth of a technology which was unparalleled in its heydays. This gives us an insight into Bologna as a highly technologically advanced city in late medieval times. Here it is also important to recollect the fact that such a sophisticated narration of the history of silk production would not have

been possible without the efforts of historian Carlo Poni, whose research made it possible to reconstruct the centerpiece.

• The effective use of a centerpiece: In order to be effective, A story has to revolve around a leverage point which will trigger the curiosity of visitors. It can be an awe-inspiring piece of technology, painting, artifact, object which will draw the attention of the viewer. In this case, the centerpiece is the reconstructed scaled- down version of the circular silk mill. Interestingly, it appears almost at the end of the exhibit, by which time, the visitors have already learned a number of things about it, like the sketches of the mill, how the motor was run, how the workers’ lives were organized.

• Narrative focus: While the centerpiece remains the most important part of the narrative puzzle, all other artifacts and multimedia devices should be focused in augmenting the understanding of the topic in question. In this case, it is the history of silk production in Bologna whose story is told through the technological heritage of the city. The narration weaves seamlessly the social life of the artisans and craftsmen who made use of the technology to produce silk goods and contributed to the economy of the city.