Cantoni, a mill immersed in local and national history

The Cantoni Cotton Mill and its history, an example of industrialisation that left its mark not only on the social and production fabric of Castellanza, but also on the economic growth of Italy. The first cotton mill to become a joint-stock company and to be listed on the stock market, Cantoni can also boast participation in the World Fair, in Paris, in 1855, as the only company from Lombardy at the event. (above, the site of the LIUC University)

It is thanks to the restoration of the premises of the former factory, following the designs of the architect Aldo Rossi, a winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, that the LIUC-Cattaneo University found a home. Discussing this factory in the Library of the LIUC, therefore, is a cause of pride, as well as an opportunity to cultivate and spread a historical memory that we cannot do without.

The appointment is for Saturday, 21 May, at 10 a.m., for “Cantoni: a factory immersed in local and national history”, a conversation on the industrial revolution in Castellanza and in the Olona Valley, and on the rise and fall of the cotton empire in the Upper Milan Province of the 1900s, starting with the historic textile company.

Participants will include: Silvia Conca, a lecturer at the University of Milan, Daniele Pozzi, a lecturer in Economic History at the School of Economics and Management at the LIUC and assistant director of the Archive of Industrial Cinema and of Business Communication, and Piero Cavaleri, the manager of the “Mario Rostoni” Library at the LIUC. They have the task of recounting the story of cotton fabric in the area, and of explaining the value of a past that provided a stimulus for the development of the country.

The event is being organised in collaboration with the Civic Library of the town of Castellanza.