How silkworms could help revive Italy's centuries-old silk making

The beautiful country of Italy is famous for plenty of things.

Opera, of course. Clothes - most definitely.

Well how about... SILKWORMS?

Italy's silk industry boomed during the Renaissance, as craftsmen in workshops in northern cities like Florence, Lucca, Genoa and Venice laboured to satisfy a hunger among the rich and powerful for luxury fabrics.

In the mid-1970s, though, the Italian silk industry went into a steep decline because of cut-price competition from China.

Now though there's evidence of a revival in Italian sericulture - that's all things related to silk.

Silvia Cappellozza is from the government's Council of Agricultural Research in Padua in the north-east.

She told me it's all down to a recent decline in the quality, and a rise in the price, of Chinese silk.