The origins of regenerated cardato

Introduction of regenerated wool and the dry rag shredder

The most important innovation for Prato’s textile production in the last century and a half is undoubtedly the manufacture of fabrics using regenerated wool. This type of processing actually dates back to the mid-19th century and is based on the introduction of an invention destined to change, within just a few years, the entire production of the Prato area: the dry rag shredder.

This machine was in fact developed in 1813 by the Englishman Benjamin Law, following the idea of reusing waste from wool spinning and weaving. According to Alessandro Rossi, these machines spread in Italy after 1855, when the first models were exhibited at the Paris Exposition. However, it is documented that this device had already quietly arrived a few years earlier right in Prato.

The wet rag shredder and the Prato innovation

However, the true Prato innovation, which has survived to the present day, was the invention of the wet rag shredder, this time powered by a hydraulic engine—essentially an elliptical tank into which the rags were placed in water to soften the fibers, and then shredded by toothed drums. It was developed by adapting the Dutch vat process used in paper mills, which for centuries had been recycling old rags, though of vegetable origin, unlike the Prato process that instead employed wool.

This innovation was introduced in Prato in 1854 by Francesco Pisani and Carlo Valdrè in the Torricella building, this time in great secrecy. Unfortunately for the two entrepreneurs, the historic Torricella complex was made up of several buildings, all equipped with waterwheels connected to the same millrace, creating close proximity among the various operations housed there. For this reason, Pisani had vainly tried to move his secret machine away from prying eyes, attempting unsuccessfully to rent from Ranieri Buonamici the abandoned Gabolana ironworks in the Bisenzio Valley, claiming—evasively but not too far from the truth—that he wanted to set up a paper mill there.

However, being unable to achieve this, he was forced to remain at the Torricella, part of which was rented to a certain T.C. (as the historian Bruzzi mysteriously wrote in 1920), who ran a spinning operation there. This obscure entrepreneur, eager to steal the precious secret, took advantage of the proximity and the shared hydraulic system: one night, he entered the millrace and slipped into Pisani’s factory, where he was able to observe the innovation undisturbed. Needless to say, before long he too had acquired a similar mechanism, which then gradually spread to other entrepreneurs and subsequently accounted for much of the past success of Prato’s textile industry.

The spread of rag shredding and the birth of the Prato industry

The identity of the mysterious entrepreneur is easily deduced from an analysis of the businessmen active at the time, which shows that it was almost certainly Tobia Cai who, ironically, in 1863, succeeded in renting from Buonamici the very ironworks previously sought by Pisani, where he installed a wet rag shredder, later becoming one of the richest and most famous entrepreneurs of the era. By then, however, the secret had spread throughout Prato, and already the following year there were eighteen shredding plants in operation, which would soon multiply further and change the productive destiny of the entire city.

It is also interesting to note how this activity came to constitute, especially in the upper Bisenzio Valley, a sort of complement to milling. In fact, there had already been some overlap between milling and the textile world, with fulling mills often located alongside millstones, even if the roles of miller and fuller remained distinct while sharing the same hydraulic system. Although the millers were not the first to install such plants, they were certainly among the first to come into close contact with them—sometimes even in conflict—since hydraulic systems were often multipurpose, placing them side by side with these new machines and frequently forcing them to compete for the use of precious hydraulic energy.

The millers who seized this opportunity thus became the first small textile entrepreneurs, as happened with Cecconi and Turchi in Terrigoli, Biagioli in Cerbaia, Bellandi in Fabbro, and the Bardazzi family in Vaiano and Camino, eventually leading to fully integrated fabric production processes, such as Meucci in Vernio. This marked the definitive transition from one sector to another—from being a miller to becoming a full-fledged textile entrepreneur.

The evolution of regenerated wool

The new fiber thus obtained took the name of regenerated wool. Used in blends with new wool, with other fibers, or even alone, it would then undergo the entire textile production process to once again become fabric. If at first only cuttings and textile waste were used, very soon old garments also began to be employed, and in a short time Prato transformed into the world capital of rags—as Malaparte himself emphasized in *Maledetti Toscani*, when he declared that “all of Italy’s and Europe’s history ends up in Prato: all in Prato, in rags”.

The processing of rags had by then become the work of a whole host of small artisans, though there were also entrepreneurs who approached the business on a larger scale, making this trade and its initial processing their main activity. One of the earliest and most significant examples was undoubtedly Michelangelo Calamai who, in 1878, set up a large factory for this very purpose right near Prato’s railway station, built on the Maria Antonia railway line.

The carbonization of fibers and chemical treatment

Subsequently, the main wool mills carried out this activity internally, although throughout the 20th century there were still entrepreneurs who continued to specialize exclusively in it, such as Sanesi Sanesino and Enrico Befani. Thus, as the use of old rags became increasingly widespread in the regenerated wool industry, the need arose to industrially remove the vegetable fibers that were often mixed into used garments. To address this problem, around 1850, a chemical process for the carbonization of unwanted fibers was developed in England; however, it would take some time before it was widely adopted.

Text by

Giuseppe Guanci

Giuseppe Guanci is an architect and expert in industrial archaeology, a field in which he also earned a Level II Master’s degree. He conducts research on industrial heritage, proto-industrial technology, and the redevelopment of abandoned industrial areas, with particular focus on the Prato area.

He is the author of the following volumes: *La Briglia in Val di Bisenzio. Tre secoli di storia tra carta, rame e lana*; *Costruzioni & Sperimentazione – L’attività del giovane Pier Luigi Nervi a Prato*; *I luoghi storici della produzione – Provincia di Prato – Val di Bisenzio*; *I luoghi storici della produzione nel pratese*; *Guida all’archeologia industriale della Toscana*; *Acqua & Energia – Dalla ruota idraulica alla turbina*; *I luoghi storici della produzione nell’empolese e la Valdelsa fiorentina*; *Prato, Personaggi & Prodotti*; *COLLE storia di un luogo, un’azienda, un museo*;

*Il patrimonio industriale pratese. Piccole storie di una grande tradizione produttiva*; *Imprese & imprenditori nel distretto pratese. Una storia dell’industria tessile dalla sua nascita fino ai giorni nostri.* He has also published numerous essays on energy, technology, and industrial heritage in specialized journals and books, as well as giving lectures, teaching, and participating in conferences on these same topics. Guanci also creates sculptures from very thin metal wire but, unlike traditional sculptors, he works with emptiness, which is why he is often called the “sculptor of emptiness.”

These sculptures are characterized by research into emptiness and what it “contains,” an attempt to enclose it with thin metal wire, with which figures are “drawn” in space, like a sort of three-dimensional fabric—hence Guanci calls them “Tessoforme,” a name derived from his knowledge of textile history.