A fountain of knowledge about sea silk and its history may be found in the Sea Silk web site of the Natural History Museum at Basil, Switzerland. The same site provides numerous photographs and an extensive bibliography, including most of the references used in this post. The site is bilingual, in English and in German.
Basic readings for those interested in the production of sea silk in Sardinia and Taranto are the two books that are listed below. Both can be accessed on the web.
de Réaumur, R. A., 1717. Observations sur le coquillage appellé Pinne Marine, ou Nacre de Perle; à l’occasion duquel on explique la formation des perles. Histoire de l’Académie royale des sciences, Mémoires. Paris 177-194.
On line at https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/213849#page/1/mode/1up
von Salis Marschlins, C. U., 1793. Reisen in verschiedene Provinzen des Königreichs Neapel, Zürich/Leipzig: Ziegler und Söhne.
On line at https://www.e-rara.ch/zut/content/zoom/2318188
The story about the sponge for Pompei that turned into sea silk is explained in
Maeder, F., & Médard, F. (2018). Too good to be true-no sea-silk in Pompeii. In Textiles and dyes in the mediterranean economy and society: proceedings of the VIth International Symposium on Textiles and Dyes in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Padova-Este-Altino, Italy 17-20 October 2016) (pp. 295-304). Libros Pórtico. file:///C:/Users/user/Downloads/TOO_GOOD_TO_BE_TRUE_NO_SEA_SILK_IN_POMPE.pdf
The noble pen shells as lead ingot moulds are presented in
Gosner, L. R. (2022). Coastal Resource Integration and Reuse in Iron Age South-Eastern Iberia: The Lead Ingots Cast from Pinna nobilis Shells. European Journal of Archaeology, 1-19.
The research about the noble pen shells and other endangered species that are served in Greek restaurants is published in the following paper
Katsanevakis, S., Poursanidis, D., Issaris, D., Issaris, Y, Panou, A. Petza, D., Vassilopoulou, V., Chaldaiou, I., and Sini, M., 2011. “Protected” marine shelled molluscs: thriving in Greek seafood restaurants. Mediterranean Marine Science 12, sep. 2011. Available at: <http://www.medit-mar-sc.net/index.php/marine/article/view/42/41>. Date accessed: 13 Jun. 2016.
The reader can find a synopsis of current research on noble pen shell and about the shrimp or the little crab that live in it in the follwoing paper:
Basso, L., Vázquez-Luis, M., García-March, J. R., Deudero, S., Alvarez, E., Vicente, N., … & Hendriks, I. E. (2015). The pen shell, Pinna nobilis: A review of population status and recommended research priorities in the Mediterranean Sea. Advances in marine biology, 71, 109-160. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S006528811500005X