Once in Calabria the silk production was a great business for the whole region: every family had their small breeding of silkworms and the industry was very known for the production of yarn.
The silkworm arrived in Calabria in the Byzantine era, transported from China by Basilian monks, with the introduction of the cultivation of the white mulberry, better than the black one for feeding silkworms.
The maximum development of this business took place in the 1700s while its decline started from 1800 until the complete disappearance.
Today this old tradition has been resumed in two villages: Mendicino, where there are two old spinning mills renovated and transformed into a museum, an unique example of industrial archeology, and San Floro where a cooperative has taken up again the sericulture and the production of silk yarn according to the old traditions.