Antonio Conte, who came from the Leogra Valley, was the founder of the eighteenth-century Conte Wool Mill situated on the Roggia Maestra, between Via XX Settembre and Largo Fusinelle. His name appears on the famous document of the 28th October 1757, the date when the lease was signed for the wool-manufacturing complex owned by Giovanni Antonio Donadelli.
By conducting his business with shrewd managerial ability, he succeeded in introducing the wool mill products in the upper Vicenza area market, and obtained good profits which allowed him to buy the Donadelli family property including all the water rights on 30th August 1772.
Between 1777 and 1779 Antonio Conte entrusted the production of low cloth to external workshops and alongside this he produced fine-quality cloth using wool from the grazing lands of the Upper Vicenza as well as the Polesine and Verona areas. Between 1780 and 1784 he further consolidated his position as a textile industrialist with respect to his Venetian colleagues, and subsequently enlarged his factory and improved the machinery. This was how he laid the basis for a modern company in which his heirs would ensure a continuity of management up to the present day.