At the end of the 1400s Leonardo da Vinci designed a "warping machine," to be used by weavers to wind thread. A version of it was built in the 1600s, and that very machine is still in use today, at silkmaker Antico Setificio Fiorentino, in Florence, Italy, to make braids.  The firm's CEO, Filippo Ricci, then showed correspondent Martha Teichner the 1700 looms. In 1786, the city's most prominent families handed over their personal looms so Florence could go into business producing the luxury fabrics its aristocrats wore.

A city of businessmen and bankers, Florence was always into conspicuous consumption. Just look at its art, and the gold jewelry sold on the Ponte Vecchio (which translates to the old bridge), Spanning the Arno River, the bridge dates back to 1345. "Originally it was a place for selling fish and meat," said Elaine Ruffolo, an American Renaissance art historian who lives in Florence. "And when the Medici became Grand Dukes of the city, they don't like the smell of all that fish and meat, and so they changed the function of the bridge to the place for the goldsmiths. And it has had gold shops on this bridge since 1565."