For centuries, the knowledge of silk and silk production remained an impenetrable mystery within the borders of mainland China. Quoting the Roman historian, Pliny, from his Natural History volumes, "Silk was obtained by removing the down from the leaves with the help of water..." In 70 BC, factual information regarding the origin of silk was, at best, scanty...

The infamous Silk Road represented the first significant overland trade route between China and the western world. Officially, this remarkable link opened to commerce during the 2nd century BC, and provided, over hundreds of years, a conduit for intellectual, religious and commercial exchange. The influential Han emperor, Wudi, was the first to recognize trade potential with the western provinces. Exotic spices, cascades of shimmering silk, gunpowder, fine porcelain, and the technology of moveable-type printing flowed along this path eventually into Persia, India, and, eventually, the foreign lands beyond.

Only the ruling Chinese dynasties were privy to the secrets behind silk cultivation. But, as farming methods in China yielded increasingly lucrative industrial grade silks, this coveted fabric found its place among the peasant classes. The less valuable silks were used to make musical instruments, fishing-lines, and even rag paper, the world's most luxurious stationery. The ability to develop high-quality silk remained, for the time, the sole dominion of Chinese sericulturists. Farmers, in fact, paid their taxes in grain and silk. Such was its esteemed value.

However, in AD 550, two Nestorian monks arrived from China at the portals of Byzantine Emperor Justinian's court with silkworm eggs concealed in their hollow staves. Church and state conspired, constructing imperial workshops, which produced lower-grade silks. This expansion into the western world did not affect commerce along the Silk Road, though, as the Chinese still held tenaciously to the science of sericulture. The Silk Road's greatest era arrived during the Tang dynasty. Changan, gateway city to the Silk Road, prospered under Tang rule, and became one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world.

By the 13th century, Marco Polo, in league with his father and uncle, ventured the 7,500 mile journey down the Silk Road into interior China. Over the course of trade negotiations, Kublai Khan, then leader of the Mongols, divulged the complete knowledge of silk production. Two thousand skilled weavers transferred their talents, shortly thereafter, to Italian soil. This event marked the introduction of fine-quality silk manufacture west of Constantinople.

The shroud of mystery which once cloaked the exotic world of silk, had finally lifted.