Fondazione Antonio Ratti: Como's Textile Heritage

There are moments when you understand exactly why your work exists. For us, this happened recently during a visit to the Fondazione Antonio Ratti in Como, where director Maddalena Terragni guided us through one of Italy's most significant textile collections.
Every Nosetta piece begins with Como fabrics—the same exceptional textiles that supply the world's luxury houses. But understanding why these fabrics are exceptional requires going deeper into the region's history, into the archives and collections that preserve centuries of textile artistry.
The Fondazione Antonio Ratti is precisely that kind of place.

The lakefront villa home to the Fondazione Antonio Ratti 

The Collection: Six Centuries of Textile Artistry
What Antonio Ratti began in the 1950s as a personal source of design inspiration has evolved into an extraordinary public resource. The collection now holds over 3,300 textile fragments spanning from the third to the twentieth century—a remarkable timeline of global textile development.
Walking through the collection reveals an astonishing range: Coptic textiles from early Christianity, Indigenous American weavings, Italian Renaissance velvets, Indian and European cashmere shawls, French silks, Congolese Kuba cloths, Central Asian ikats, Alsatian printed cottons, Japanese kimonos. Each piece tells a story of technique, trade, and cultural exchange.
Nearly 3,000 sample books chart the industrial evolution of textile production in France and Italy over two centuries—an invaluable record of how traditional craft became modern industry while maintaining its artistic integrity.

Como's Silk Legacy
For those of us working with Como fabrics, the collection's most meaningful section focuses on local silk production history, including Antonio Ratti's own earliest designs. This is where you see the foundations of what makes Como textiles distinct.
Lake Como's textile industry didn't emerge by accident. The region's combination of clean water, alpine climate, and proximity to Swiss technical innovation created ideal conditions for silk production. By the early 20th century, Como had become the world's silk capital—a position it maintains today through continuous evolution of design and manufacturing excellence.
The Fondazione's archives reveal this evolution: from hand-drawn patterns to industrial jacquard weaving, from traditional motifs to avant-garde designs. What remains constant is the commitment to quality and innovation that defines Como's textile identity.
These aren't museum pieces divorced from contemporary production. These are the roots of the fabrics still being woven in Como's mills today—the same fabrics we source within a 25-kilometer radius of our atelier.

The curator Maddalena Terragni presenting silk scarf designs from the archive

What This Heritage Means for Nosetta
We've always said that Nosetta begins with fabric. Not as a marketing statement, but as operational truth. Every handbag, every clutch, every scarf starts with visits to Como's historic textile mills—conversations about weight, drape, pattern scale, color fastness.
But this visit to the Fondazione reminded us that we're not simply buying fabric. We're participating in a heritage that spans centuries, drawing from the same well of expertise and artistry that has made Como textiles the standard for luxury houses worldwide.
When we select a jacquard from Dedar or a print from Clerici Tessuto, we're accessing generations of accumulated knowledge about what makes a textile exceptional. The hand-feel of vegetable-tanned Tuscan leather against Como silk isn't just aesthetically pleasing—it represents two of Italy's most refined craft traditions in dialogue.
Antonio Ratti understood something essential when he created his collection: creativity doesn't emerge from nothing. It builds on what came before, reinterpreting and evolving while maintaining connection to source.
This is exactly how we approach each Nosetta collection—not chasing trends, but returning to the heritage of Como textile artistry and asking: what does timeless quality look like today?

18th century silk 

The Digital Caveau: Accessing the Archive
In 1998, the Fondazione made its collection publicly accessible through an innovative digitalization project. The Digital Caveau—designed by then-director Chiara Buss—was internationally groundbreaking, allowing users to navigate the digitized archive with unprecedented ease.
The current version offers even more sophisticated access, with relational architecture that connects artifacts and reconstructs the narratives linking them across time and geography. It's an invaluable research tool for designers, scholars, and students.
As Antonio Ratti stated in 1998: "In my life, I have always found inspiration for my creativity in museums. I want others to be able to have the same experience."

1930s Silk Fabric

Visiting the Fondazione Antonio Ratti
The Fondazione is in the beautiful Villa Sucota in Como and welcomes visitors interested in textile history and design. Access to the Digital Caveau and physical collection can be arranged through their website.
If you find yourself in Lake Como, we strongly recommend a visit. It provides context not just for Nosetta, but for the entire Como textile tradition that continues to define luxury fabric production worldwide.
For us, these visits aren't occasional inspiration—they're essential practice. A return to the source. A reminder of why geography, heritage, and continuous craft refinement matter in an industry often dominated by faster, cheaper production.
Como's textile heritage isn't nostalgic preservation. It's living tradition, informing contemporary production while maintaining standards that took centuries to develop.
This is what we mean when we say Nosetta begins with the fabrics of Como.


Detail of a sample book, 19th century