[Philip]

My impression of blade manufacture on the Peninsula pre-1800 was a multitude of mostly family-owned workshops, the best-known ones by repute being in relatively small towns like Bergamo, Belluno, Caino, and the like where blades were a specialty for many generations. A lot of product was distributed in other areas where cutlers assembled finished swords, putting hilts made by them or others on blades from various sources in Italy and abroad.

This was essentially the same situation elsewhere in Europe but the Industrial Revolution and with it the birth of modern factories and corporations changed all that. It should be no surprise that countries like Britain and France, which were unified states with well-developed technical, commercial, and financial bases, led the pack in this transformation. . Italy did not unify until 1870 and until then much of its territory was governed by foreign crowns. Also, the distribution of natural resources to support industrial production was not as extensive as that of certain areas in northern Europe.

Firearms manufacture in Italy presents an interesting area of comparative study. There, the artisanal workshop system also succumbed to the Industrial Age -- the centuries-old centers of high-quality gunmaking in the towns of Central Italy (Pistoia, Anghiari, Celalba, Brento, Florence, Bargi, Bologna, etc.) folded up almost overnight in the period 1840-60. The distinctive regional character that made Italian guns so recognizable for the previous 300 years vanished too, in favor of pan-European designs geared to new tastes and the requirements of marketing. Of the armory towns, Brescia was practically the only one to continue existence, indeed flourish, in modern times, and it lies in Lombardy, the industrial and financial heart of the "new" Italy. The sporting arms industry thrives with names like Perazzi and Benelli, but one firm, Beretta, has led the way in capitalizing on the fruits of the Industrial Revolution by making a huge name for itself in both military and civilian arms sales. Remarkable, for an entity which has existed since the first half of the 16th century.

So what about the blade industry? Perhaps because by the 19th cent., swords were so much less important to the militaries of the Western world that no Beretta-class players emerged in the field. Not to say that cutlery became a forgotten trade -- Italy has become famous for its fine shears, scissors, industrial cutting tools, and horticultural implements, which are esteemed and widely exported today. Product adverts in the 19th cent Italian press show that this swords-to-plowshares transition was underway in Lombardy well before the First World War.

A possible analogy can be found in Japan, where the Meiji-era abolition of the samurai class' privilege of wearing swords resulted in a big decrease in demand for new weapons. The transfer of talent and resources has led to that country's success in the manufacture and worldwide sale of high quality knives and tools in our time. Omnia mutantur et nos in illis mutamur. may be the watchword for crafts and industries which hope to survive as nations and societies evolve.