Lorenzo Avellino

LORENZO AVELLINO is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the University of Geneva. His research interests include labour history, the history of political economy and the history of technology. In 2023, he defended his Economic and Social History doctoral thesis entitled 'On the Misunderstood Meaning of Freedom: Labour, Quality and Theft in Lombard Silk Manufactures, 1760–1860', which was awarded the Prix Universal for the best social science dissertation by the University of Geneva and the Prix Ortaggi for the best labour history thesis by the Società Italiana di Storia del Lavoro. His current research focuses on the relationship between the economic thinking of overlooked actors, fashion, industrial policies, and technological evolution in the European silk trade and its colonies.

Research Interests

Enterprise and industrial history

Labour relations

Political Economy

Textile history

Doctoral thesis

“Sous le vocable mal compris de la Liberté”: travail, qualité et vols dans les soieries lombardes, 1760-1860

Publications

·         Lorenzo Avellino, “Consumer credit and account money: silk cocoons at the origins of Italian capitalism (18th-19th centuries)” in Giuseppe de Luca and Marina Romani (eds.), Preindustrial Payment Systems in Europe and Beyond, Pagrave, forthcoming in 2026

·         Lorenzo Avellino, “Debt, pay and theft: underground silk networks between Milan and Como (1780-1860)” in Manuela Martini (ed.), Textile knots. Remunerations, labour relations and gender in Europe during the industrialisation (eighteenth to early twentieth centuries), Brepols publisher, forthcoming in 2025

·         Avellino, L. Tolaini R. & Vérot J.-B. (2025), “Linking the chain: how the quest for white reshaped the European silk market (1770-1830), Fabric of Profit Working papers, n°6, p. 1-29

·         Avellino, L. (2025) “Tirer profit de la soie : machines, marchands et économie politique en France (1741-1782)”, Fabric of Profit Working papers, n°3, p. 1-48

·         Avellino, L. (2024) "Questioni di fili. Seta, automazione e saperi femminili alle origini del capitalismo industriale", Zapruder – rivista di storia della conflittualità sociale, n. 65, p. 110-122

·         Lorenzo Avellino, “Una Rivolta di Qualità: il Tumulto dei Tessitori di Como del 1790”,  RISES Ricerche di storia economica e sociale, VIII, 2023, 1-2, pp. 155-186

·         Lorenzo Avellino, « Il fondo Tavano: uno strumento ibrido per lo studio della FONDERIA Nebiolo » in Nebiolo history project, Fonderia Caratteri Nebiolo, 1878–1978. Nuovi studi critici, Lazy dog press, 2023, pp. 340-347

·         Lorenzo Avellino, « “They have no property to lose”: the impasse of free labour in the Lombard silk manufactures (1780-1810) », International Review of Social History, vol. 68, n° S31, 2023, pp. 135–155

·         Lorenzo Avellino, « Des ouvriers, des fabricants ou des oisifs ? Rôles et hiérarchies dans la fabrique de soie lombarde après l'abolition des corporations (1780-1860) », Le Mouvement Social, 2021 n°3, pp. 27-45

·         Lorenzo Avellino, «La gerarchia contestata: i capi Fiat dal dopoguerra alla marcia dei Quarantamila », Studi storici, 2016, vol. 57, n° 2, pp. 439-466