Merchants of the first generation: trade, satin and velvet

From apothecary to textile merchant: Aloisio Orelli

The first Locarnese in Zurich lived from trade. Their capital consisted of what they had managed to take with them across the Alps, of debts owed to them in Locarno and Lombardy, and above all of their knowledge of Italian markets, suppliers and commercial practice. The career of Aloisio Orelli, the ancestor of the Zurich Orelli, illustrates the path. Born in Locarno after 1486, he bought a pharmacy there in 1541 and entered trade. He was one of the leaders of the Protestant community and had to take refuge in Zurich in 1555. By 1557 he owned a shop in Zurich in which he sold leather goods, hats, soap, tallow and candles. From 1558 he added silk fabrics, velvet and Zwilch (ticking).¹ He died in Zurich on 13 July 1572.

Aloisio's range of goods shows how a refugee merchant started. Leather, hats, soap and candles were everyday goods with a steady market. They required little capital, could be bought in Lombardy or locally and did not obviously compete with a single powerful guild. Silk fabrics and velvet were a different matter. They were luxury goods with high margins, they came from the Italian centres of production that the Locarnese knew well, and their sale presupposed credit relationships with suppliers in Milan, Como or Bergamo. The shift from ordinary goods to silks within three years of arrival indicates that the family's Italian connections had survived the exile and could be used from Zurich.

The second generation: wool, cotton and fustian

Aloisio's sons, Franz and Johann Melchior Aloys, turned the family business into one of the largest trading houses of the city. According to the Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz, they exported woollen and cotton textiles. By 1578 at the latest Johann Melchior Aloys and his brother operated one of the largest businesses in Zurich in raw cotton cloth and Trilch, a coarse twilled linen or fustian.² This trade linked Zurich with the cotton markets of northern Italy, where raw cotton from the Levant arrived through Venice, and with the spinners and weavers of the Zurich countryside, who processed it for the merchants.

The Orelli business therefore already showed the features of the later putting-out system. The merchant bought raw materials, distributed them to spinners and weavers who worked at home, collected the finished goods and sold them in distant markets. The merchant's capital consisted of stocks of materials and finished goods, of advances to workers and of credit extended to buyers. Profits depended on the margin between the cost of raw materials and labour and the selling price abroad, and on the speed with which capital could be turned over. A family that controlled both the purchasing connections in Italy and the distribution network at home could earn substantial returns, which explains the rapid rise of the Orelli in the decades after their arrival.

Notes

1. Martin Illi, "Orelli, Aloisio", in DHS, version of 26 October 2009, https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/fr/articles/027642/ (consulted 4 October 2026): "Propriétaire d'un magasin en 1557, il fit le commerce d'articles en cuir, de chapeaux, de savons, de suif et de bougies et, dès 1558, de soieries, de velours et de coutil." The article dates his death to 13 July 1572. ↩
2. Rodolfo Huber and Martin Illi, "Orelli", in DHS, version of 3 May 2017, https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/fr/articles/020179/ (consulted 4 October 2026): export of woollen and cotton textiles by Franz and Johann Melchior Aloys; Wikipedia, "Johann Melchior Aloys von Orelli" (above): by 1578 at the latest one of Zurich's largest businesses in raw cotton cloth and "trellis" fabric ( Trilch ) together with his brother Franz. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of October 2026.