the origin of which only untenable conjectures exist, and which in its present aspect reminds us as little as does any part of the whole centre of the old city of the former flourishing state of the trade.[41] Of no less importance, and perhaps hardly less ancient than the cloth manufactures, was the weaving of silk, which, after its introduction into Sicily by King Roger, had been in a short time transplanted to Central Italy, if, indeed, it was not previously cultivated in Lucca. Of all the great branches of industry of the Middle Ages, this is the only one which has preserved a certain importance down to our day. The Arte della Seta was usually called the Por Sta. Maria, after the St. Mary’s Gate, or Porta Regina, opposite the Ponte Vecchio, at the entrance of the street still called Via di Por Sta. Maria (usually Mercato Nuovo), where the former guild-hall still stands, near the church of Sta. Maria sopra Porta, in the Via di Capaccio, distinguished by the coat of arms, a closed red door in a white field. The silk-weavers appear already, in the twelfth and oftener still in the thirteenth century, as a corporation in public acts and treaties, in the conclusions of peace and other compacts. In the list of the masters of the guild in the year 1225 their number is given as more than 350, and probably they had even then statutes; but the oldest still extant date from 1335, and therefore from a time when this industry seems to have attained considerable importance under the Guelfs from Lucca, who had emigrated to Florence in great numbers in 1316. The dyeing of silk was pursued here with great skill, and in particular the crimsoned tissue stood in high reputation in the fourteenth century. We shall speak later of the most brilliant epoch, the fifteenth century. The Vicolo della Seta, in the vicinity of the former hall, and the Via de’ Velluti, on the left bank of the river, near Via Maggio, where numerous silk-weavers and other mechanics originally lived, and where the still flourishing family of the Velluti took its rise, remind us of their former great activity.[42]