The Caprotti family, innovation and tradition in an Italian factory: workers from San Vittore prison
When, in the early post-unification years, the Caprottis built their first large factory in the true sense of the term, eventually finding themselves with thousands of square metres of space, they were initially not quite clear what to put in it. They probably envisaged a kind of ‘centralised manufacturing’, and to this end they purchased various machines by turning to various manufacturers, including the Milanese prison of San Vittore whose director, Eugenio Cicognani, was personally passionate about and invented a newly developed regulator loom, built by the inmates.
