Our History – Linificio

For 150 years we have never stopped moving foward

The history of Linificio e Canapificio Nazionale is a story of Italian creativity, vocation for beauty and love for tradition and the land.

A 150-year-old history of uninterrupted linen production, and therefore unique in the world.

It all began on January 14, 1873 with the intuition of an enlightened entrepreneur named Andrea Ponti, who merged the factory of Fara Gera d’Adda with the plant at Cassano, to which in 1920 was added Villa d’Almè. Thus came about a manufacturing expertise that was destined to become the most important company in the world for the processing of hemp and linen.

From tradition to revolution.

This was the age of the Second Industrial Revolution, when great technological progress created the opportunity to transform production designed for the narrow confines of local consumption into outright industrial processes to serve much larger markets.

At that time, the processing of flax and hemp was spread across the entire Po valley,but was carried out by the rural population using traditional methods handed down through generations. Ponti wanted to create a system that would harness the astonishing technological progress of the time. Thus was born Linificio e Canapificio Nazionale.

” January 14, 1873: Linificio e Canapificio Nazionale was created, thanks to the will of an enlightened entrepreneur named Andrea Ponti. 150 years later it is one of Europe’s oldest companies and is considered a symbol of the excellence of the Belpaese in the production of hemp and flax.”