Italian textile art is known and respected worldwide. The art of fabric woven by expert craftsman with artisanal techniques is a beautiful thing that has been going on since 1789 in the Italian town of Caserta. Located just north of Naples, this place has long been known for making some of the most beautiful fabrics seen in Italy and the Vatican.
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The heart of the industry is found in Caserta's neighborhood of San Leucio. There in the Piazza della Seta (Plaza of the Silk), is located the firm of Antico Opificio Serico. This family-owned company offers over 30,000 designs. Visitors see a small on-site museum with various antique looms, granting a rare glimpse of how the fabrics have been woven over the centuries.
In this region locals have been creating fabrics and different colored yarns for generations. Custom refined fabrics that celebrate beauty are still made and sold here, designed with a variety of images and symbols with a certain creative energy that evokes a bygone era.
The above image is of a custom-made silk print that was designed and woven several years ago for the FSSP in multiple colors for vestments, tabernacle veils, and antipendiums (seen in Rome and elsewhere in Europe at FSSP apostolates). Below is an image of the antipendium altar frontal from Santissima Trinita' in Rome
The reason San Leucio in Caserta became famous for silks was the result of King Ferdinand IV of the Kingdom of Naples, who called Francesco de Negri, a textile master from Genoa, to relocate to Caserta to work in the royal colony of silk that had been established there a few years previous for the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The firm Antico Opificio Serico was thus started by Ferdinand's nephew, Leopoldo and the work continues today.
God bless these expert craftsmen and may Heaven reward them for all they do to beautify the Sacred Liturgy and the Sacred Vatican Apostolic Palaces (whose walls are covered in lovely white silk brocade fabric woven by them with the papal tiara and crossed keys in the early 2000s'). The three images below illustrate wall coverings seen in the offices of the Cardinal Secretary of State, with wall coverings from San Leucio.
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