Gelso secolare al molo

A long-lived mulberry stands beside the pier on Abbadia Lariana’s lakefront. Its association with silk production connects a living feature of the village to the industrial heritage preserved in the former Monti mill.

Why it matters

Mulberry leaves provided food for silkworms, linking the cultivation of trees to household work and the wider silk industry. The lakeside tree recalls this agricultural side of an economy also represented by the village’s silk-twisting machinery.

What to notice

The tree’s position beside the pier gives it a distinctive place in the lakefront landscape. Another mulberry in the former mill’s courtyard provides a separate connection between the plant and Abbadia’s industrial history.

Context and history

Lombardy’s silk industry combined silkworm raising, reeling, twisting and weaving. Pietro Monti’s twisting factory preserves machinery from this production chain and became a civic museum in 1998. The mulberry and the mill represent different stages of that history: the leaves that sustained the silkworms and the machinery that processed their silk.