History of Byssus

The Pinna Nobilis provides up to one kilo of mussel meat, so it was primarily food. “The pinnae are water-driving, nutritious, not easily digestible,” wrote the Greek Athenaeus in the 2nd century BC. At some point, someone had the idea to use the adhesive threads from the Pinna Nobilis as well. These threads being cleaned, combed and spun, resulted in a textile material called ‘Sea Silk’.

The first written evidence of textile use of sea silk dates back to the 2nd century AD. In Alciphron’s letters we find the Greek term for sea wool (tὰ ἐκ τῆς θαλάσσης, thalassis eria). In Latin it is marinas lanas. Tertullian, a Carthaginian lawyer who converted to Christianity, mentions sea silk in his De Pallio: “Nor was it enough to comb and sow the materials for a tunic, It was necessary also to fish for one’s dress; For fleeces are obtained from the sea, where shells of extraordinary size are furnished with tufts of mossy hair.”

The most important proof of the existence of sea silk in ancient times is probably Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum Prices from 301, an excellent source for all those interested in everyday Roman history. Inflation and high prices caused the Roman emperor Diocletian to prescribe maximum prices for all imaginable goods and services, and this rule was carved in stone in Latin and Greek and placed in all of the important market places in the empire. In Chapter 25 of the price edict about wool it is mentioned sea wool. A tunic made of sea silk costs the enormous sum of 48,000 denarii (the cheapest tunic was available for 200 denarii)

From the 4th century AD comes the first material evidence of sea silk in late antiquity. The material fragment was found in 1912 in a woman’s grave in Aquincum. Today’s Budapest was then a Roman legionary city on the north-eastern border of the Empire. The necklace of gold and coloured glass beads found at the same time indicates that this mummy was a high-ranking figure. There is some evidence that the textile fragment originates from the Syrian provinces of Rome.

An exceptional testimony to the existence of sea silk in the High Middle Ages is found in a letter sent by Berta of Tuscany (ca 860-925) to the Caliph of Baghdad around 906. She calls herself “Queen of the Franks”, “more powerful than Byzantium”, “mistress of 24 empires, including Rome”, and asks for the friendship of Caliph al-Muktafi (875-908), the then most powerful Islamic prince. With the letter, the envoy delivered rich gifts, only the best products of her empire, as she writes. In addition to weapons and large dogs, slaves and eunuchs, falcons and pearls, the long list includes “twenty robes made of wool, produced from sea shells, in the colours of the rainbow, changing at every hour of the day.”

The following poem was written in the 14th century by the Byzantine poet Manuel Philes (ca. 1270-1332). It mentions the hair of the pinna, reminiscent of cobwebs, whose luster gives a seductive charm to the curls of young girls: '“Pinnae quod humidum effluit de viscere, Qui fulgur aequet, fit lapillus lucidus; Sed unionis induit tandem jubar, Vis promoventis si caloris appetat. Quin & pilorum pinna germen byssinum.” When we read this poem, who does not think of the pensive girl from Pompeii with the book in her hand and stylus at her mouth, and a fine golden hairnet?

The first book dedicated exclusively to shells and snails was published in 1681, Ricreatione dell’occhio e della mente nell’osservation’ delle chiocciole. The book, written in Italian by Filippo Buonanni (1638-1725), is one of the first scientific books not written in Latin, but a Latin version appeared only three years later. Among Buonanni’s copperplate engravings, there are two fan shells with adhesive threads. The use of the byssus as textile material was known to him. He called it bisso marino, marine byssus, and contrasted it clearly with the bisso terrestre, the “rural” byssus, which is made of linen or cotton.

Hans Sloane (1660-1753), the founder of the British Museum in London, is considered the last universal collector. The collection he catalogued himself between 1702 and 1747 contained almost 6,000 shells, and in addition to corals and sponges there are gloves made of sea silk: ”A pair of men’s glove made of the beard of the pinna marina in Andalousia in Spain sent me by His Grace the Duke of Richmond.” These gloves are later described as “one of the most curious items connected with the invertebrate exhibits”. Van Rymsdyk’s catalogue Museum Britannicum from 1778 shows one of these gloves which still exists. After Sloane’s death in 1753, his entire collection, including the objects made of sea silk, was purchased by the English state for the new British Museum.

In the 18th century, byssus became an object of natural history research. The French naturalist René-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur (1683-1757), a member of the Académie Royale des Sciences in Paris, studied the various anchoring techniques of marine animals. In 1742, the first book of seashells in French was published, the Conchyliologie by the scholar Antoine-Joseph Dezallier d’Argenville (1680-1765). The Pinna nobilis was widespread in Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, he writes, and was used to make fabrics, stockings and gloves.

We owe most of the objects made of sea silk that still exist today to Giuseppe Capecelatro (1744-1836), archbishop of Tatanto, who was an extraordinary personality of old Neapolitan nobility. He was a highly educated lawyer and man of the Enlightenment. His rebellious writings on the renewal of the Church, including the abolition of celibacy, were immediately banned by the Vatican. He has swapped a career in the church for service to his community. Swinburne wrote in 1783 about the difficult economic situation of Taranto, but also saw hope in Capecelatro, who was extremely sensitive to the misery of the lowest classes: “…but there is great reason to hope these inconveniences will be removed by the patriotic and judicious endeavours of the present Archbishop Monsignor Joseph Capecelatro, who has abandoned the road that leads to the purple, and other objects of ecclesiastical ambition, in order to devote his life and talents to the welfare of his flock, and the improvement of his native country.”

At a time when the nobility enjoyed and the people paid, the Archbishop of Taranto promoted all the employment opportunities offered by the rich fishing grounds off Taranto’s coasts. The Pinna nobilis was one of them. The processing of turning the adhesive threads into sea silk and its further processing into textile objects was intended to improve the living situation of the people. He himself took over the dissemination of the knowledge and the distribution of the objects through his extensive network of correspondents. Marketing avant la lettre.

In the 19th century, exhibition catalogues and reports from regional, national and international trade fairs and world exhibitions were important sources for textiles made from sea silk. The Catalogue des productions industrielles of the first industrial exhibition in Paris, which took place in 1801 at the Louvre, lists industrial producers and their goods, including cloths and waistcoats made of sea silk. Fifty years later, at the Paris World Fair of 1855, a new blend of wool and sea silk attracted attention. The manufacturers were M. L. Laurent and Démar et Cie from Elbeuf, an important textile town in Upper Normandy.

At the London World Exhibition in 1862, various sea silk products from Italy were shown. The Official Catalogue of the Industrial Department mentions a scarf and gloves from Sardinia. “Shawl made with the byssus of the Pinna,” and “Byssus of the Pinna, with thread, gloves, etc. made of it.” The Royal Italian Commission, which had brought these objects to London, offered them to the Industrial Museum of Scotland, now the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

The Sardinian military doctor Giuseppe Basso-Arnoux (1840-1919) moved from Alghero to Carloforte after his retirement, which he wanted to make the industrial centre of the sea silk processing industry. In 1916, Basso-Arnoux published Sulla pesca ed utilizzazione della ‘Pinna Nobilis’ e del relativo bisso. From this, it is clear that he knew about a sea silk production in Taranto, where he also learned about the process a pelliccia. After the plans for a mechanical fabric production had broken down, they led to another method of fur production. Basso-Arnoux must have employed several people to make textile objects, mostly experienced old countrywomen, because the handspining was most difficult. Three years before his death, he summed up in very sorrowful and personal words his years of efforts, and his failure, to revive the processing of sea silk in Sardinia: “I have done all I could to succeed in drawing attention to the many poor fishermen, who live in the most squalid misery, I have sacrificed time and money, I will be left with the satisfaction of having spent my time pleasantly, leaving others to take advantage of my teachings, and to succeed in realising something that is worth more and more to honour the name of Italy.” Basso-Arnoux died in 1919 on the island of San Pietro, in Carloforte, which he had once chosen as the future centre of sea silk production. His grave can still be seen there today.

A few years later, another Sardinian took the lead. Italo Diana (1890-1967) had grown up in a women’s household in Sant’Antioco and was interested early in everything to do with spinning and weaving. Therefore, it is quite possible that he had heard of Basso-Arnoux. Perhaps he had even known him and had taken over the knowledge about sea silk from him, as from Sant’Antioco to Carloforte it is only a few kilometers of road and a short boat trip. Diana was 29 when Basso-Arnoux died.

In 1923, Italo Diana’s studio, where wool, linen and cotton were spun and woven, was established on Via Magenta in Sant’Antioco. The studio became famous beyond the island for its textiles made of sea silk. Perhaps the most amazing object is a tapestry that was made for Mussolini, the Duce, on the occasion of the inauguration of the newly founded mining town of Carbonia. In the centre is the bundle of lictors and the writing WW IL DUCE. However, it was never presented to the Duce.

Probably the last exhibition in which sea silk was shown as a commercial object took place in Sassari from August 15 to September 2, 1950: Mostra regionale dell’artigianato delle piccole industrie e delle materie prime della Sardegna. It is not known whether objects from the atelier of Italo Diana were also shown here. At that time, he was already director of the textile department of the Istituto Statale d’Arte per la Sardegna in Sassari.

At the beginning of the 20th century, between 20,000 and 30,000 fan shells per year of the Pinna nobilis were harvested in Taranto as food. The raw byssus obtained from it was 30 to 40 kg. In 1928 the Consiglio Provinciale dell’Economia di Taranto published the illustrated paper Bisso e Porpora: per la rinascita delle due grandi industrie by Beniamino Mastrocinque. It ends with the request to turn the small-scale craft of sea silk processing, which was still practiced in only a few families, into an economic activity with jobs. Two conditions had to be met: a regular supply of byssus and the possibility of a mechanised processing of the sea silk. It can be concluded that Mastrocinque was not aware of the efforts being made in Sardinia at the time, unlike Basso-Arnoux, who mentions Mastrocinque.

Filomena Martellotta (1894-1927) founded the first Scuola privata di Avviamento Professionale per la Donna in 1923 (the same year in which Italo Diana founded his studio in Sant’Antioco), and the processing of sea silk was a subject for teaching. The teacher Rita del Bene (1909-1998) experimented with the processing of sea silk on a mechanical loom, which finally led to a patent in 1936. In 1938, a company for sea silk processing was to be established, but this did not come about due to lack of financial support from the Roman Ministry. Del Bene then founded her own private school to teach the processing of sea silk.

All of these projects ended with the Second World War and were not continued afterwards. In Taranto, sea silk was mentioned in connection with literature about travellers on grand tours in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the 1990s, the local history magazine Cenacolo published several publications by Giacinto Peluso and by Lucia D’Ippolito, both without much echo. This was the end of the history of sea silk as a commercial commodity. The nylon age had dawned.

The Pes sisters

At the age of 15, Efisia Murroni (1913-2013) had already learned how to work with wool, linen and sea silk in Italo Diana’s studio. After the death of Jolanda Sitzia, she was the last surviving student of Italo Diana. She passed on her knowledge to many girls and women, including Assuntina and Giuseppina Pes.

The Pes sisters had learned the traditional Sardinian weaving techniques from Leonilde Mereu. A large tapestry manufaturer in Sant’Antioco, in which no sea silk was used, testifies to their excellent abilities as weavers. In 1984 they had already founded the Cooperativa Sant’Antioco Martire, where they gave weaving courses. They learned the production and processing of sea silk at the end of the 1990s from Efisia Murroni. With the few byssus available, they passed on their knowledge to the students in their Cooperativa, in part on behalf of the region of Sardinia. Today they show their great talent for craftsmanship in their work with sea silk and other materials in their rooms in Sant’Antioco.

Since the middle of the 20th century, the Pinna Nobilis populations have declined. Reasons include, on the one hand, destruction by trawling as well as anchoring and overexploitation by recreational divers. On the other hand, the seagrass beds, the habitat of the Pinna, are threatened by over-fertilisation and by the spread of the so-called ‘killer algae’ Caulerpa taxifolia. In 1992, the Pinna nobilis was placed under protection in the European Union (EU) and in Croatia; this was renewed in 2006. In 2000, populations varied from one animal to 30 animals per 100 m2.

Despite their protected status, many populations are still threatened since the protection of the mussel is not implemented or not respected. “Pinna nobilis is still commercially exploited and served in Greek fish restaurants. In addition, poaching by recreational or professional fishermen and divers for personal consumption or collection of its shell is quite significant and appears to be a major threat to the conservation of the species.” (Katsanevakis et al. 2011) Only a few years ago, the meat of the Pinna Nobilis was also available – illegally – in certain southern Italian restaurants.

A new threat, much more massive in its scale and impact, was first discovered on the Spanish Mediterranean coast in 2016: a mass die-off of the fan shell, which has since reached the waters off France, Italy and Greece. The cause is now known: A parasite called Haplosporidium pinnae, which lodges in the animal’s digestive gland, multiplies there and decomposes the tissue. The mussel starves to death.