Two families experience the highs and lows of history: The Fontanas come from Italy, where they have practiced the art of silk weaving since the Renaissance. Valued for their precious work but also persecuted for their stubbornness and love of freedom, they migrate from Lucca through Florence and Lyon to the Rhineland, where they settle in Düsseldorf. There, they encounter the Polish mining family Lukacz, who turned their backs on misery and hunger at the end of the 19th century to find a better life in the industrially flourishing Ruhr area. When the two families finally unite through marriage in 1933, they represent a typical Rhineland intertwining of southern joie de vivre and eastern melancholy, of knowledge and piety, independence and sense of duty. The pattern is a book of great history and small stories.