The complex has a remarkable architectural importance, a useful surface of about 23,000 square meters and consists of various buildings built between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries.
The first Lanificio di Stia Company was established in 1852, when a modern entrepreneurial activity had been organized in a few decades to concentrate the various phases of wool processing in a single factory. In the early sixties of the nineteenth century the Lanificio employed about 140 workers and remembered as the first in Tuscany to use machinery imported from abroad.
After years of neglect many roofs and portions of buildings had collapsed, water infiltrations damaged the walls, tons of waste material were stacked and rotted inside and outside the buildings creating disruptions, the vegetation had invaded large portions of the plant, entering the interior and also destroying the finishes.
The old turbines and the water path, from the piping under pressure to the drainage channel in the stream, are one of the most interesting elements.
I entered the factory on September 30, 1935, I was 14, I worked in the factory about 44 years. I liked the job, but I was a little distant, because I had to walk from Porciano. When it was the turn you had to be there for 5 in the morning. In the winter it was full of snow up there, I suffered so much to come down, you brought the termos with caffelatte ...
After an experience at the Lanificio di Stia, outside it was labeled, because we knew something more, perhaps because in the family we always passed on the same jobs, at home the problems of work and the machine were chewed. Maybe in the same family there were five to six people all working inside the Wool Mill: for this there was welfare in Stia.
In the "room" where I worked, I was fired. We were all young women aged 15 to 16, the incursatrici were all women. There were six or seven young girls in a room, there was so much laughter, there was a bit of noise, and Bertolotti occasionally came to reproach us ...
I went to the Wool Mill that I was 12 and 6 months old. After various experiences, they sent me to a department called the warehouse lane, where they were mixed. I knew how to recognize the fineness and provenance of all wool qualities to the touch. I became head of the technical department and sent the whole warehouse forward: they sent me a sample and I had to know what colors to order and the qualities of wool that were needed to make the mixes.
The Lombards had this magnanimity: Christmas arrived and they gave the cut of the coat to the Lanificio employees, to all their farmers, to all the factors: all that day they had to have a new coat, and at Easter the dress. Very little physical presence at Stia, but for any Lombard request it was available.
I entered the factory in 1942 and I retired in 1985. I had my hair on the frame! Since I was a breadwinner, I also worked in wartime. We also worked at night because we did three shifts. Military clothes were made: the gray-green and the aviation, which dyed all the hands of blue ...
The warping was my whole life, I always did the warp: I did it willingly because it was an interesting job, it was not a job from nothing ... there was work but also to put our heads. Now many people go to work unfortunately without interest, but we were so busy working here, it was a valuable work. We really worked with love.
