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Hello Vermin_King,
Sorry for the delay in answering. Many things kept me busy amongst which my wife's and my 50 anniversary.
Anyway, about the use of cloth and where it came from: Here in Holland there were complete regions where the main source of income was the weaving of cloth for sails. Not only for use in Holland, it was also a popular export product. Personally I do not exclude the possibility that even Genoans used some of the cloth brought in from Holland. It might very well be delivered in the same ships that brought northern European grain, corn and wheat to Italy and returned full of fruit and wine to Holland.
There were several 'sizes' of cloth: the usual light sort made of hemp was called canefas (like canvas), which was 75 cm wide. A thinner cloth, called 'Klaverdoek' was much narrower and mainly used for topgallant and stay-sails and there was a heavy kind, used in areas with rough weather. On top of that there was cloth made for flags, surprisingly sometimes made from wool!
Also the origin of the cloth was of influence to the quality, like 'Meppeler doek', apparently made in Meppel, a small town up north-east, or 'Vlaams doek', apparently coming from Flanders in the south.
There have been studies made for sailing cloth and its origins, but as hardly any piece has survived the times it is a hard subject to study.
Does that answer your question?
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