La forma della bellezza

Se pensate che l’educazione sia costosa, diceva Abramo Lincoln, provate a sperimentare l’ignoranza. L’educazione: un termine che sembra purtroppo sparito dal radar dei social media, ma anche dalle semplici relazioni interpersonali e lavorative. Un termine che invece è centrale per ogni autentico sviluppo della società, che necessariamente passa dallo sviluppo della persona.

Questa scomparsa, progressiva ma non per questo inesorabile, diventa ancora più inquietante per chi crede nel valore progettuale e salvifico della bellezza: perché anche alla bellezza occorre educarsi, per poterne cogliere il senso e poterla dunque integrare alle nostre vite.

La bellezza italiana, al contempo fragile e potente, chiede di essere amata, ammirata e scoperta: ma per amare occorre comprendere, e la vera comprensione non può che nascere da un percorso educativo serio e sereno, saggio e sottile.

Educazione alla bellezza come rispetto, garbo e tatto nel parlare, nel rispondere, nell’agire: scomparsa? Si infrangono le più normali regole di civile convivenza in ragione di un’assurda idea di libertà individuale, che in realtà è più un’anarchica ignoranza. Ci si offende e ci si attacca con vigliacca violenza, dilapidando un patrimonio di lettere e spirito che da sempre, invece, contraddistingue la vis polemica del nostro Paese. Si distrugge il territorio, dalle nostre città (dove regnano il disamore e la sciatteria) agli scenari naturalistici che sono invece un valore straordinario. Un nichilismo dell’anima che fa male e genera bruttezza.

Educazione alla bellezza come formazione accademica, scolastica e culturale: non scomparsa, ma sofferente. Si fa fatica anche ad assicurare alle giovani generazioni quella metodologia di educazione (formale) e auto-educazione (spesso informale) che ha fatto la fortuna di tanti brillanti imprenditori, mossi dalla curiosità e da un giusta dose di ambizione: sperimentare, vedere, provare. Uscire dalla pigrizia mentale che ci porta a sentire sempre le stesse sirene, per lasciarsi invece sorprendere dalla voce profonda di una bellezza che richiede impegno, dedizione, tempo e passione: come ricorda il Piccolo Principe, è il tempo che dedichiamo alle cose (e alle persone) che ce le rende preziose. E ogni autentico processo educativo non può che essere costoso, in termini di tempo: ma è anche l’unico investimento autenticamente redditizio per il futuro della bellezza italiana.

E infine, l’educazione come progressiva formazione del proprio carattere: pericolosamente febbricitante. Ogni bravo scultore sa che per ottenere un marmo levigato non bisogna risparmiare i colpi e le carezze: per far emergere i tratti costruttivi della propria persona, e per poter seguire con felicità la propria autentica vocazione, occorre essere pronti a subire i colpi dei bravi maestri, che sollevino gli strati morti dalle nostre convinzioni e percezioni e ci “formino”, appunto, come un artista farebbe con la materia prima.

Oggi si dimentica che educare le giovani generazioni alla bellezza significa assicurare un futuro migliore non solo a loro, ma anche a noi, a ciò che amiamo, a ciò cui teniamo: per quanto difficile sia educare, rinunciare a farlo sarebbe estremamente più costoso e persino fatale. Perché educare ed educarsi alla bellezza significa sperare che insieme, davvero, sia sempre possibile costruire un mondo migliore: più umano, più significativo, più sorprendente. Nessuno si offenda se dico, in sintesi: più italiano. •

AN ALL-ITALIAN LEGACY

Alberto

Cavalli

It doesn’t take a PhD in the philosophy of aesthetics to ponder over the way in which design affects beauty and its Italian spirit. All it requires is an awareness of what constitutes our main competitive advantage; of the attribute around which every reflection on Italy revolves; of the values that do not embody some vague dream or distant desire, but a clear understanding of who we are and what we want for our lives. And, of course, why we want it.

Talent, together with endurance, dedication and perseverance in pursuing a project, and in transforming an original idea into something extraordinary, are essential ingredients in the achievement of the Italian beauty to which this issue is dedicated. A beauty expressed through exemplary and authentic stories: stories of artisans who, each in their own way, embody and represent the distinctive criteria that constitute the DNA of Italian beauty. Craftsmanship and creativity, innovation and interpretation, territory and authenticity: understanding the present of Italian beauty through the prism of these values means investing in a future that is truly sustainable, because it is based on the courage of dreams, on the competence of gestures, on the attainment of results that exceed expectations and seduce the whole world with the sheer persuasiveness of hand-made beauty. One that gives happiness to those who create it, those who admire it, and those who purchase it. Beauty and happiness are an essential key to understanding the value of products that are Made in Italy. Achieving a result that we have set ourselves does not often lead to happiness. This is confirmed by researches, and by our own experience. On the contrary, actually living the circumstances that we consciously decided to create, and which we set up with great determination, gives a much deeper and more lasting sense of fulfilment because it is tangible. Dedication makes everything possible, and a project can become a strategy. It is a lesson that master artisans have always taught, and one that we have tried to narrate in this issue. There may already be people, places or experiences around us that gently lead us towards a better fruition of our time: workshops, ateliers, laboratories, businesses. We should pay attention to them, and observe them for what they are: hothouses of authentic beauty. In this way, the strength and willpower we put into pursuing a result will head towards a specific direction, in which we may not be able to avoid encountering difficulties and doubts, but along which the doors of satisfaction and fulfilment can be more easily opened. What message could be more enticing for the younger generations who will have to envisage the Italian beauty of the future?

Combining creative enthusiasm and practical application, the passion of the heart with the intelligence of the hand, is the challenge that we want, and indeed must, accept: we need to focus on our creativity, talent and on a new culture of making that does not overshadow the rules of ethics, the temperance of common sense, the influence of our roots.

Because, in the end, it is always about culture: from culture, learning, persuasion and beauty comes the know-how that has always represented our identity, and which has its roots in that Latin wisdom that translates both as “having a flavour” and “being wise”. A flavour that enriches and preserves; a wisdom that has a “flavour” because it is human, personal, handed down not only through ’’things’’ but also through words and gestures. That is, through the kind of experience that cannot be bought, but is always the most valuable of all. Enjoy your reading!

TERRITORIAL DESIGN Ugo La Pietra

We have always needed beauty (and today we need it more than ever, given the times we live in). We have looked for it everywhere: in the gaze of a child, in birdsong, in dazzling snow-capped mountains… and we have always sought to carry it with us, in our minds and hearts, even by means of something tangible, capable of evoking it. This has stimulated us to create objects that express this beauty (or at least recall it), and which we have brought into our homes. We displayed them on mantlepieces, in cabinets, on sideboards... and we called them “objects of beauty”. A definition that meant that they didn’t serve any particular function. At times they made a nod to a purpose, but mostly their value was purely emotional, reminding us of a place, a person, an experience. To this day, people returning from faraway places (much like the travellers on the Grand Tour in the 18th and 19th centuries) continue to look for the beauty Italy offers in objects they can take back home. Through these objects we allow that beauty to enter our households, which Gio Ponti described as the “Italianstyle home”: “A variable place, which is simultaneously full of memories, of hopes, of brave acceptance. A home to be lived, both through good fortune and sadness…”. A home, that is, made of objects capable of expressing our deepest culture: the culture that has sought beauty for centuries.

But in this age, what kind of objects can convey this much-needed value? Ponti used to urge designers to conceive objects without modesty and, especially, without fear of using the world “beautiful”. Ponti himself was pointing the way: to start from the past, from the classic. “After all, one always starts out in an Academy, and then head towards another academy: one’s own.” This is what we find in objects that are finely handcrafted, objects that, according to Gio Ponti’s definitions, “stand the test of time”, “objects of the imagination”…

The values that give sense and beauty to objects can be found in much of our craftsmanship. A craftsmanship that, in recent years, has undergone the same process: passing from classic towards “renewed” forms, thanks to the designer’s creativity. These objects can stand the test of time because, before being renewed, they were born from a consolidated tradition. These objects express the essence of being Italian because they are inspired by the roots (historical and cultural) of our many and varied territories, where beauty underpins the deepest value of our culture: diversity. This diversity prompts us to create increasingly exceptional, often unique pieces, in which craftsmanship anchored to traditional skills seeks new techniques and materials, in a bid to continue to have a role to play, and to attract the public.

I have called this practice “territorial design” ever since in the cabinet that belonged to my grandmother, who originally hailed from Vietri sul Mare, I used to admire her small ceramic donkey (coppery-green in colour, always smiling), which to this day is the symbol of folk culture in Mediterranean countries, but was introduced to local potters by several German artists who landed on the Salento coast in the 1930s.

The Meaning Of Luxury

Alba Cappellieri

Luxury is a widely used term in contemporary times. In fact, it is definitely overused and, like other stereotypes, it takes on different meanings depending on the social context and historical moment. It is one of the most frequently recurring references: all magazines write about luxury, top-end and premium products, to the point of representing the ambition of all brands.

But luxury today is not just about marketing. After casting aside the 19th-century moralistic stigma of uselessness, excess and waste, it has shifted from the opulence of material display to the delicate nature of intangible emotion, and today it is taking on the form of aesthetic and sensorial experiences, rather than that of material wealth. In the post-Covid era, it is once again becoming an expression of culture, quality, beauty and uniqueness. A sustainable and environmentallyfriendly form of luxury, characterised by hedonistic and informed consumption. And these new-found values have prompted this reflection.

What does luxury mean to you? Think about it for a moment and try to define it. It’s not easy to encapsulate it into a single definition, because luxury makes its way freely across distant lands, gently joining them with its misty trail, breaking through the rigid trenches of disciplinary fields and narrowsightedness. In the words of Bernard de Mandeville, it is everything and at the same time it is nothing: as exclusive and enveloping as a tailored suit, luminous and impenetrable as a diamond, precious and fleeting as time, freedom or space. Despite its lexical vagueness and conceptual complexity, luxury forces us to take a position. It generates discussions, and modifies the way in which people think and live. It is a transitory topic, a no-man’s land, an altar devoted to beauty capable of bridging traditionally distant people and cultures.

Luxury creates connections between the outside world of commerce and social relations, and the intimate world of each individual’s identity, of his desires, dreams and image. Analysing luxury, therefore, allows us to better understand the mysteries of beauty and quality, and embraces disciplines as varied as anthropology, philosophy, social sciences, sociology, psychology, economics, theology, fashion, semiotics, communication, in addition to design. Since ancient times, Italy and France have been the main creators of beauty. Unlike the Italians, however, the French view the luxury industry in terms of their national identity, their excellence, their ability to generate wealth and workplaces. Ministers such as Jack Lang and economists such as Jean Castarède consider luxury an extremely important phenomenon for both the economic development and the cultural and artistic progress of France. In Italy, on the other hand, luxury evokes the vulgar ostentation of the nouveau riche rather than beauty, progress and culture. To the point that Giorgio Armani’s famous statement “luxury disgusts me” well translates the distress of those who understand and create luxury.

Yet a study by the Design Department of Milan’s Politecnico has revealed five scenarios of the luxury universe that demonstrate its multidisciplinary and scientific importance. In its socio-semiological dimension, luxury is a constructor of identity based on the relationship between the individual and society, in which luxury defines, creates and communicates messages through the body. In its evolutionary-technological dimension, luxury is a catalyst for modernity, where the demand for goods with a high aesthetic and manufacturing value determines an incentive for progress. In the macroeconomic one, luxury is a factor of capitalist growth and an engine of wealth. In the anthropological and microeconomic one, luxury is a consumer index because of its ability to change the values of goods and determine new scenarios of consumption. And, lastly, that of the design disciplines, which consider luxury as a form of extreme design, the logics and processes of which are as exceptional as those of the Italian manufacturing system, thanks to its ability to create harmony and to bestow, as Hume put it, the greatest beauty in the gratification of the senses.

Album

Stefania Montani

Atelier Crestani

Via Boschi 36/A, Camisano Vicentino (Vicenza)

Trees, animals, the sea and its inhabitants are Simone Crestani’s main sources of inspiration. He has always been fascinated by nature, and the glass objects he crafts in his bright workshop in Camisano Vicentino feature wonderful trees with leaves bent by the wind, mighty deer antlers with webbed tips, curious rabbit ears popping out of the top of transparent bottles, and acrobatic octopuses wrapping themselves around goblets. It’s a dreamlike world full of poetry, where transparency and pure lines create a bewitching effect. “Glass manufacturing involves a series of very complex operations, which require years of practice and extreme dedication,” Simone explains. “I was fortunate enough to learn all the techniques when I was very young, in the atelier of

Maestro Massimo Lunardon. After that, I opened my own workshop in 2010.” Simone blows his glass by mouth, heating it with a blowpipe and shaping it with tongs. Even the firing process in the kiln requires great precision, because if the timing and temperature are not exactly right, the glass will break. Since Crestani uses borosilicate glass, he can work in a more sculptural way than with the traditional technique, enabling him to create large-scale objects while also paying attention to the details. “I’m well known for the particular technique I use, which is why I am often invited to hold lectures at prestigious academies and glass schools in Italy and abroad. I consider natural forms to be expressions of imperfect balance and elegance. In my works, I enjoy admiring the coexistence of fragile forms and concrete details, and my ultimate aim is always the pursuit of harmony.” For the Salone del Mobile in Milan 2022, he collaborated on a special educational project with the young talents of the Creative Academy, the design school of the Richemont Group, and with Eligo Studio, executing a collection of objects, made with the flame technique known as “hollow sculpture”, which was successfully presented at Palazzo Litta in a highly poetic setting. simonecrestani.com

Bice & Berta

Via Santa Margherita 19, Torre Boldone (Bergamo)

From making little dresses for her dolls to creating refined, made-to-measure women’s outfits that are appreciated around the world: the Bice & Berta knitwear atelier, opened around thirty years ago by Marina Rizzini near Bergamo, came about thanks to a wonderful succession of coincidences (as often happens in life), but above all of talent, perseverance and opportunities seized with both hands. “My aunt Bice was an amazing seamstress. She used to make me sit next to her while she worked, and she’d teach me to crochet and knit dresses for my dolls. She also taught me how to embroider. She was an exceptional tutor,” confides Marina. In 1992, she took the leap and left her office job in a fuel company to open her first atelier. Success came quickly thanks to word-of-mouth of her friends. Encouraged by her husband Marco, in 1998 Marina bought larger premises in Torre Boldone, a few kilometres from Bergamo, where she founded the Bice & Berta brand. Since then, the business of the creative artisan designer has never stopped: her customers range from France to Great Britain, Switzerland and even Japan.

“I installed about a dozen early 20th-century rectilinear knitting machines, with needles of different sizes, from 3 to 14, and started making custommade knitwear. Ski jumpers with a yarn count of 10, coats, ultra-fine cardigans in silk and cashmere that need to be made under a magnifying glass, skirts, evening dresses in lurex... The assembly is all done by hand, as are the buttonholes and any embroidery. I named my company after my daughters, and at the same time I also wanted to pay homage to my aunt Bice and grandmother Berta,” says Marina. The designs crafted by her bursting imagination are original, both in terms of cut and colour combinations.

“We have an archive of 1,400 samples, and every year we create around 40 new models. All of them can be customised,” she emphasises.

“The secret of our success also lies in picking the finest raw materials: when you’re making high-end products, the materials have to be perfect.” Marina works with unparalleled skill and passion with the talented and enterprising Camilla: from mother to daughter. biceeberta.it

Mingardo Design Faber

Via Liguria 3, Monselice (Padua)

Metals have always been the greatest passion of Daniele Mingardo, who has been working in the forge since the age of 18. He gleaned the secrets of the trade from his father Ilario, whose metalworking business in Monselice had been renowned since the 1970s for its accurate workmanship and significant collaborations, such as those with Carlo and Tobia Scarpa, Aldo Parisotto, the Petruzzelli Theatre in Bari, the Parco della Musica in Florence and the Museo del Novecento in Milan. When he turned 25, the extraordinary manual dexterity and techniques acquired during the years of experimentation in his father’s forge prompted Daniele to create a collection of his own, manufacturing new furnishing accessories also in collaboration with designers. Today, at 34, Mingardo Design Faber is a brand producing limited-edition designer objects in metal, combining materials such as iron, copper, brass, steel. “I am grateful to Aldo Parisotto, who hosted my first collection in his showroom in Milan during the 2013 Fuori Salone, for the opportunity he gave me to make myself known in the world of design,” says Daniele. “Ours is a small business, there are ten of us in total, plus a handful of external artisans. So, we manage to have a very direct relationship with our customers, with a constant interchange of energy. For the past few years, we have had an art director, Federica Biasi, with whom we develop our own original designs, in addition to working with nationally and internationally renowned designers, such as Omri Revesz, Gio Tirotto, Chiara Andreatti, Simone Bonanni, Valerio Sommella and many others. It is always exciting to make their ideas come true with the talent of our artisans.”

The product catalogue of Mingardo Design Faber is vast and varied, but the company’s strength lies in its attention to detail as well as in the relationship with the designers. Bespoke techniques are made possible by the expertise and passion of the metalworkers at Mingardo. “Everything can be customised, from stairs to furniture, from lamps to seats and bookcases. My inclination for continuous research, from casting to welding, from the transformation of the different metals over the years to moulding the form, is the trigger that gives me the energy to face each day with enthusiasm. Because the technical side can never be separated from the human one,” concludes the talented Daniele. mingardo.com

Tessitura Brozzetti

Via Tiberio Berardi 5/6, Perugia

Tessitura Brozzetti is a magical place in the heart of Umbria, where the charm of history, art and Italian craftsmanship is preserved. The “soul” of the workshop is Marta Cucchia, interior decorator and young master craftswoman, who, with determination and talent, has been able to perpetuate an ancient know-how handed down to her by her family: hand-weaving on looms. Her atelier is in Perugia, in the charming setting of the church of San Francesco delle Donne. “It all began with my great-grandmother, Giuditta Brozzetti. In 1921, she founded an artisan workshop and school for the production of textiles, inspired by the custom of Perugia’s women, who traditionally made the fabrics they needed for domestic life themselves, recovering patterns and designs of Umbria. Our production of linen, cotton, silk, cashmere blends and gold and silver laminate fabrics is still hand-woven on antique 18th-century pedal looms and 19th-century jacquard looms. We make curtains, tablecloths, blankets, tapestries, furnishing fabrics, as well as some clothing accessories such as scarves, stoles and bags. Everything can be customised. Today, thanks to the restoration of an original loom, we have also revived the Fiamma di Perugia weaving technique, which had all but disappeared.” Steeped in the rich heritage of Umbria’s ornamental motifs, the production of Tessitura Brozzetti recreates fabrics with characteristic decorative themes inspired by Etruscan textiles and the so-called “Perugian tablecloths”, a cornerstone of the great local medieval textile tradition. “Some of the ornamental patterns can be found in the paintings of Giotto, Ghirlandaio and Leonardo da Vinci,” explains Marta Cucchia, who is not only an extraordinary master craftswoman but also a cultural reference point in the region. As she concludes the visit to her workshop and textile museum, Marta explains: “Each stage of the process respects time-honoured techniques and timescales. The warp is assembled as it was done 500 years ago, and it takes up to 20 days to set up one of our looms. Every single thread of the weft is passed by hand, and in one day a weaver can produce a maximum of 50 cm of fabric.” Thanks to its unique characteristics, the atelier was included in Umbria’s museum network in 2004. brozzetti.com

Vecchia Bottega Maiolicara Di Simone

Via del Giardino 10, Castelli (Teramo)

Even though he has received countless prizes and awards, including one from the Sovrintendenza per i Beni Culturali, and that he has often been interviewed on television to illustrate his works, Vincenzo Di Simone has maintained the simple attitude, unpretentiousness and smile that characterise people who have learned to live in harmony by pursuing their talent with passion. His first encounter with ceramics was in his childhood, because his family home was close to a time-honoured workshop. Thus, clay became his favourite game, in a town where the tradition of majolica has very ancient origins. At the age of 17, he joined the studio of Luigi De Angelis, a master of ceramic craft, until he opened his own workshop in 1970. His son Anotnio, to whom he taught all the secrets of the trade, joined him in 1980. The atmosphere in the workshop is extraordinary, with the space stacked with moulds, some of which are very old, the treadle wheel, work benches and a high-temperature kiln. Vincenzo also creates the glazes and colours himself: yellow, cobalt blue, manganese, copper green and “Castelli “ orange, all of which are considered the traditional colours of the region. He fires his artefacts in the “forno a respiro”, or breathing kiln (“because when the wood from our forests burns, it seems to breathe”). “A feature that characterises Castelli’s ceramics is that the terracotta is first glazed and then painted using traditional tools,” explains Antonio, who is in charge of decorating the majolica. A skilled decorator, he creates landscapes of timeless charm, pastoral and mythological scenes, portrayals of farmyard animals and roosters using traditional donkey-hair paintbrushes, which are perfect for an accurate stroke. This is how his plates, jugs, glasses and large trays are created. The products made in the workshop also include traditional whistles and pipes. Today, the Di Simone family represents a tradition that is committed to the craftsmanship of Abruzzo, enhancing techniques inherited from the past, as well as the knowledge of the raw materials in which the territory is steeped.

Fratelli Levaggi

Via Parma 469, Chiavari (Genova)

An ante-litteram design object that, after more than two centuries, continues to be incredibly up-to-date. We are talking about the chair that Giuseppe Gaetano Descalzi, also known as “il Campanino”, created in the early 19th century. Striking the perfect balance between form and function, this chair is characterised by an essential structure that not only makes it lightweight, but also gives it stability. Known the world over as Chiavarine, these chairs are now made by brothers Gabriele and Paolo Levaggi, who followed in the footsteps of their father and uncles, and actually managed to expand their production. The vast workshop contains traditional equipment: bandsaws, grinders, lathes, planes, sanders, as well as hand tools. Countless templates hang on the walls, which are used to reproduce the parts of each individual chair: legs, back, seat. All the steps are carried out by hand and the pieces assembled using heated animal glues, just like in the past. “Natural glues have the advantage that they are not only non-toxic, but also reversible if you need to undo a joint,” explains Paolo Levaggi, who together with his brother and a team of young artisans creates the different models. “We use seasoned cherry, beech and ash wood from the inland areas of Liguria. One of the characteristic features of the levaggisedie.it

Chiavarine chairs is the straw seat, which is obtained by weaving thin reeds of rush directly onto the frame according to a warp and weft pattern. This creates a real fabric that contributes to the robustness and tautness of the structure itself. Since research is always at the core of our business, we often collaborate with architects and interior designers, creating bespoke models for them,” Paolo continues. “We try to communicate our work, which is undoubtedly traditional, with an eye to the future: this is why we are present on social media and were selected in 2015 by Google for being one of the few outstanding artisan businesses in Italy to actually increase its turnover,” confides Levaggi. Another feature of Laboratorio Levaggi is the composition of the work team: they are all young people aged between 18 and 30 years old. A real promise for the craftsmanship of tomorrow.

Fabscarte

Via Foppa

50/A, Milan

Emilio Brazzolotto and Luigi Scarabelli are two exceptional master craftsmen who, fascinated by the world of decorative arts, set up a studio in the 1980s dedicated to the design and creation of trompe l’oeils, glazes, patinas, faux marble and wood, and imaginary landscapes to adorn rooms with infinite backgrounds. They became great experts in painting techniques, and in 2012 they gave a new impulse to their business by starting to make hand-painted and hand-decorated wallpapers, much different from anything else on the market. “Nature has always been our source of inspiration: trees, forests, flowers,” the outstanding artisans confide. “But also contemporary art, with all its textures, has become an important element, providing us with new ideas.” Thanks to years of experience and a variety of skills, Brazzolotto and Scarabelli have created highly original wallpapers. “Our starting point is always nature, but we interpret it in an informal way, overlapping the different materials to achieve three-dimensional effects. Our aim is to express emotions but also to allow everyone to interpret and experience what they feel inside of them,” explains Luigi Scarabelli. The workshop occupies a brightly-lit former industrial site, with large windows overlooking the inner courtyard. Amidst an infinity of drawing paper, sketches and sheets resting on tables or hanging on the walls, the two master craftsmen and their team of young assistants design lacquered finishes, silvery streaks, cloudy effects, geometric patterns and textural applications that render the surfaces three-dimensional. Just like in ancient times, they use colours made from different types of earth, glues, natural stucco, shellac... “Our subjects are mainly contemporary,” emphasise Emilio and Luigi, who often bring to life works created by artists and designers such as Martyn Thompson, Allegra Hicks and Francesco Simeti. The Fabscarte studio has recently started producing decorated furnishing accessories, including screens, lamps and appliques. fabscarte.it

Massimo Maria Melis

Via dell’Orso

57, Rome

Massimo Maria Melis makes beautiful jewellery crafted with skill. A historian and master artisan, he has succeeded in transferring into his creations all his passion for jewellery together with the culture of Italy’s heritage. Ancient Rome, Magna Grecia, the Etruscans and the Renaissance are his sources of inspiration. He has also studied and reproduced with infinite care the special workmanship employed in past centuries. “I studied set and costume design at the Academy of Fine Arts. I have worked in cinema and theatre, as well as being a photographer,” the master craftsman explains. “My passion for jewellery was born when I first saw the Castellani collection at Villa Giulia: I was captivated by the elegance of the workmanship and this led me to investigate the techniques of our ancestors.” His workshop is home to the minute tools of the goldsmiths of the past, pliers and files, as well as extruders and welders. Among the time-honoured techniques Melis has adopted are the casting of gold in cuttlefish bone, the creation of lost-wax models, and even “granulation”, with which he welds microspheres into patterns, an ancient technique in which the Etruscans excelled. “To make jewellery in the same way as in the past, you have to use the same methods and processes,” Melis rightly points out. And the results are incredible. His necklaces with engraved cameos are extraordinary, as are his bracelets, which are crafted combining gold, silver and iron. Not to mention the research of ancient coins, each with its own history, which he selects to embellish his handmade necklaces, or the fragments of polychrome glass and engraved gemstones. His regular customers include many personalities from the show business, politics and even crowned heads, all of whom are fascinated by his talent. “My creations try to convey that particular charm that antique jewellery pieces have always exerted,” confides the master goldsmith. In recent years, he has been joined in the atelier by his daughter Valentina, to whom he has passed on not only all the secrets and techniques of the trade, but also his passion for beauty: a priceless family legacy. massimomariamelis.com

Mazzanti Piume

Via Reginaldo Giuliani 144, Florence

Natalina Mazzanti was an outstanding artisan who created headdresses and decorations with feathers and silk flowers that she made herself. Her skill was renowned even outside Florence, to the point that Parisian couturiers turned to her to embellish their collections. That was back in 1935. Since then, her atelier has never ceased to grow in creativity and refinement, fulfilling the dreams of her clients. Today, the business is run by her grandson Duccio. Assisted by his father Maurizio and a dozen craftspeople, he continues to blend tradition and innovation using the same techniques handed down by three generations of passionate artisans. In his childhood, Duccio Mazzanti used to spend his time after school in the workshop, enchanted by the skill and patience with which the most varied types of feathers were worked. Since then, he has always increased his knowledge and skill in the field. “Thanks to my grandfather, who was a very talented designer, we mechanised the wooden looms to speed up the production of the feather boas, growing from 2 to 20 metres.” Among the customers of this historic workshop are the big brands of Italian and international fashion, movie and show-business dressmakers, and French cabaret. Even the feathered helmets donned by the papal Swiss Guards are brought to life here. “I think a good craftsperson knows just how much of a given ingredient is needed. Since the ingredients are always different, in terms of weight and size, an artisan should be able to understand the right amount called for by the recipe. Just like when you are cooking.” Since 2005, the Mazzanti family has expanded its production with the new Nanà Firenze collection, with which they offer headwear following the tradition initiated by grandmother Natalina, after whom the brand is named. Duccio concludes: “One of our most invaluable sources of innovation are our cooperations with the students of fashion institutes. An extraordinary exchange of passion and experience is born from the partnerships with these creative minds.” mazzantipiume.it

Pagliani & Brasseur

Via Milani 9, Verona

A fascinating family tradition in an extraordinary craft began in the early 20th century with Giuditta Brasseur, an orphan at the Collegio delle Figlie dei Militari for the daughters of army officers in Turin. There she met a schoolteacher who taught her pupils the art of fashioning garden flowers from fabric, both to decorate dresses and hats and to adorn rooms. Endowed with a natural manual talent, Giuditta began cutting shapes out of a variety of materials, hot-modelling the petals and making flowers, buds, corollas and shoots. Thanks to her creativity, she soon gained recognition in the fashion world. Her encounter with Giobatta Pagliani, a painter and sculptor who was to become her husband, marked a turning point for the business: Giobatta used clay moulds where the flowers and leaves could be cast in bronze, with the utmost precision, in the chosen materials. Their success was to be recognised by the finest boutiques and haute couture dressmakers throughout Italy, as testified by the rich archive where all the moulds and samples are kept. In Verona, where the family had in the meantime moved, their daughter Luciana also started working in the family business. Years later she would in turn be joined by Anna Tosi, the third generation of this talented family. “Our flowers are made of silk, velvet, leather, felt. We use the tools my grandmother invented: she called them bolle, and we employ them to give the petals and leaves their shape,” explains Anna Tosi, who at the age of 17 had already been singled out by Valentino for her incredible manual dexterity in bringing her floral designs to life. “All the colours are then hand-painted with food colours to create the final realistic effect. The techniques, however, remain a family secret,” the master craftswoman confides with a smile. Among the most extraordinary creations to come out of the Pagliani & Brasseur workshop is a dress made for Dior with thousands of flowers, as well as the lush ornaments designed for the Dolce & Gabbana collections. “In recent years we have started to move into other areas, creating items for interior decoration and design as well as for clothing,” Anna Tosi concludes showing one of her newly designed lamps. Because when it is combined with expertise, creativity knows no bounds. paglianibrasseur.com

Valigeria Bertoni Via Mulino Trotti 11/13, Varese

The finest pieces of luggage are born outside Varese, in an old watermill skilfully restored by the Bertoni family “Our business was established in 1949 by my grandfather Riccardo in the town centre. Over the years, due to the need for more work space, we had to move and the choice of this mill proved to be the right one, even though being located on three floors can sometimes be complicated. In the warehouse you can still see the old wheel,” explains Gaia, who with her brother Pietro represents the third generation of this family of outstanding artisans. “Our father Alberto was our master: not only did he teach us his know-how, but he also passed on to us his passion for this craft.” Every stage of production takes place inside the factory. “We have our own in-house carpentry workshop to make the frames of trunks, suitcases, bags and briefcases. We have a workshop where the leather is cut and assembled to cover the frames. This is a high-precision work that calls for skill: it starts with the external surfaces of each item, then continues with the application of the small metal parts and ends with the internal lining.” Valigeria Bertoni’s signature product is made of parchment, using the technique that made them famous. But they are also specialised in working with alligator, ostrich, python and cow skins, and with PVC-coated fabrics. “Recently, we have also developed products using recycled leather. Over the years we have worked for many well-known Italian and international fashion houses, for which we realise bespoke models. Starting from the customer’s sketches, or taking inspiration from the Bertoni archives, the Design and Development Team can create very special one-off pieces. Since 2014, we have started our own range under the historical brand Bertoni 1949: products made according to our long-established tradition, but with a new look,” Gaia Bertoni proudly concludes. bertonivaligeria.it

Vivian Saskia Wittmer

Via di S. Lucia 24/r, Florence

Vivian Saskia Wittmer has always had a passion for shoes. She is also one of the few women shoemakers in Europe, and certainly one of a handful of undisputed skill. A pupil of Hamburg’s finest shoemaker, who had learned the tricks of the trade in England, she left Germany at a very young age to move to Florence, where she went on to specialise in the workshop of Stefano Bemer, an outstanding and world-renowned cordwainer. “I worked as his assistant for three years in the late 1990s. When he passed away, I opened my own workshop in the old part of town. Florence is an incredible city, and working here stimulates you to create beautiful things,” Vivian explains. “Ever since I was a child, I have been fascinated by men’s shoes, not women’s shoes with heels: I like comfort,” she quips. Her atelier consists of three rooms, all brightly lit and facing the street. This is where she works assisted by two craftswomen. At the entrance, a large number of shoes hang on the walls, like a sample collection to help customers in their choice. This leads into the second room containing many shelves full of lasts. In the middle of the room is a machine for sewing the uppers. In the last room, the shoes are finally assembled using different hides: leather, calfskin, kidskin, galuchat, crocodile and much more. Clients can customise their choice, and all the shoes are made to measure. This is where Saskia works: her stitching, which holds the shoes together with thousands of tiny stitches, is truly exquisite. “When describing the footwear we make in this workshop, I like to say that the style is that of elegant Italian shoes, the technique is traditionally English, while the functionality of the insoles, with a light support that helps you walk well, is typically German.” In this atelier it is possible to attend courses to learn the shoemaking craft: no qualification is required, and anyone with manual skill and passion can join. Saskia adapts the duration of the courses to suit requests. Usually, the basic course lasts a month or so. saskiascarpesumisura.com

LECTURES IN BEAUTY Giuditta Comerci

Since 2015, students of the Faculty of Design at Milan's Politecnico are being offered a very particular course dedicated to Craftsmanship and Italian Beauty (“Mestieri d’arte e Bellezza italiana”). Fostered by the Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d’Arte, which entrusted the chair to Alberto Cavalli, the course aims at instilling the ability to recognise and continuously regenerate, through sense, the DNA of Italian beauty in the budding minds of the Millennial generation. The meaning of “sense” is the one theorised by philosopher François Cheng: beauty is authentic when it manifests a direction leading to our wellbeing, to our constructive evolution, rather than to our destruction and bewilderment. Beauty when it is the bearer of meaning, when it is the result of a mature and conscious project. When it strikes the senses, and by generating emotion it becomes an indelible and profound part of man. Direction, meaning and emotion represent the manifold sense of beauty that Italy has generated over the course of the centuries, and in which we can map a complex paradigm that enables young designers to identify it.

Acknowledging and avoiding the commonplace, moving away from the production of the unnecessary, growing, learning and identifying oneself in what has value and infusing it into one’s creativity, in the original expression of one’s own, authentic vocation, is the main objective of a course that aims to train the new generations of “Homo Faber”. That is, conscious designers, moulders of tomorrow’s Italian beauty through the culture of design.

Italian beauty is thus presented and studied as a genetic code in its own right, which revolves around several essential criteria: craftsmanship, authenticity, competence, creativity, innovation, interpretation, originality, talent, territory and tradition. Each element is examined to define its meaning in artistic, cultural and design terms, in order to understand just how the “code” of Italian beauty can represent a competitive advantage contributing to generating a creation that is at the same time attractive, desirable and successful. In fact, Italian beauty is an essential component of creativity bound to excellence, which in our country has lived a long and prestigious history: but this beauty, far from being just an aesthetic and superficial component, is built and nourished by hard work, commitment, tradition and territory, art and craftsmanship. It is also an additional expression of a talent and an ethic, as well as of an aesthetic, which characterise the excellence of Italian production, and that cannot do without (traditional or contemporary) craftsmanship, which is closely linked to the territory. And that, in an ideal virtuous circle, draws strength and identity from the art, history and the very beauty of our territories. Understanding how to decipher the “construction” of this beauty means recognising that Italy’s tangible and intangible heritage is an endless source of inspiration, not only creative, but also professional and design-related. In order to better link the concept of beauty to that of work, culture and research, the lectures are organised in a number of Milan’s most significant venues: the Poldi Pezzoli Museum, the Palazzina Appiani, the Biblioteca Trivulziana, the Carlo Colla & Figli marionette company, the Gallery of Modern Art... Each lesson is also enriched by the direct testimony of a protagonist of this “Italian beauty”, offering students their experience and vision: Maurizio di Robilant, Ugo La Pietra, Stefano Micelli, Isabella Villafranca Soissons, Sara Ricciardi, Zanellato/Bortotto, Paolo Ferrarini… these masters help students understand that Italian beauty can add to their design skills and the choices they make in their lives. And that it is necessary to help them find their own formal language, which respects and interacts with the beauty that provides them with inspiration.

At the beginning and end of each lesson, and throughout the entire course, the question the students ask themselves is the one Pasolini sets at the heart of La Recessione, one of his most beautiful poems: “a question that is not about money, but only about love, solely about love.” Love of oneself, one’s country, one’s destiny.

A question that Massimo Cacciari addresses well, tracing the ideal continuum between hand and mind all the way from the Renaissance to the present day: “To live well we need industriousness, advice, art, but also hands, feet and nerves: to challenge fate and fortune, the reasons of the body must team up with those of diligence, solicitude and care. If man possessed twice as ingenuity but had no hands, the ’organ of organs’, there would be no doctrines, no buildings and no cities.” That is, design would not exist. Nor, perhaps, would beauty.

The Workshop Of Dreams

Francesco Rossetti

In his book “The Way of Beauty: Five Meditations for Spiritual Transformation”, philosopher François Cheng writes that, in order to be authentic, beauty must have meaning. And in order to have meaning, beauty must also convey emotion, significance and a sense of direction. All three of these dimensions can be found in Stefano Conticelli’s craftsmanship. The emotion that arises from caressing the leather and the fabrics that are processed in his workshop at Castel Giorgio near Orvieto, in Umbria. The deep significance expressed by every one of his objects, designed to arouse memories, passions and dreams. And, finally, the sense of direction: Stefano’s talent is aimed at defining a world that is more human, more beautiful, more oriented towards people. Or, rather, towards children.

One instantly senses the genuine spirit of this coy man, who knows how to combine manual skill and a talent for design, breathing life into a production that manifests his inner feelings, whilst bearing witness to a territory and culture that are set in the green heart of Italy.

Suspended in time, his atelier is a place of experimentation: what counts here is not mass production, but the authenticity and uniqueness of objects crafted by hand. Nor would one expect anything else from a master craftsman who felt the need to commit to paper the decalogue that sums up his vision of the value of work and life: at point number 6, Stefano invites us to observe children, their gestures, their gaze, because “they are the true masters of beauty, and we will always be their pupils.”

Stefano Conticelli’s rebirth as an artisan and the genuineness of his inspiration stem from the world of dreams and the realm of childhood. His famous lorries were born with the first handmade model he made with the trunks of grape vines and wheels covered with leather (with a canvas canopy bearing the words “Tommy Trasporti Palermo-Roma-Napoli-Milano-Venezia-Torino”), which he gave his grandson Tommaso for his birthday. It marked the start of a long journey that opened the doors of the best companies and the finest homes. For Loro Piana he developed pioneering, one-off pieces expressly made for the maison’s boutiques, with the wording “Loro Piana Attenzione Trasporto Cachemire”. Conticelli performed what appeared to be a simple “revolution” but, in fact, was significantly exceptional: a childhood object stirred a child’s purest feeling while conveying messages of primitive yet autonomous beauty to adults. In so doing, it expressed talent in a free, profound manner, as only authenticity can do.

Bottega Conticelli was established in 2007. What strikes you when entering the workshop at Castel Giorgio – surrounded by exquisite preparatory sketches, which are artworks in their own right – are not the individual objects, but rather the world that opens up before you: an evanescent hemisphere where everything is magical. Riding the legendary Conticelli Vespa means experiencing a true masterpiece, the lines and silhouettes of which are upholstered and customised with Stefano’s skilled leather workmanship (of the natural vegetabletanned variety, the most environmentally-friendly method of all). This savoirfaire is so precious that it takes months of work, from moulding the leather to the final delivery of the iconic two-wheeler in very limited editions. “It took me six months to make my first Vespa. It takes the strength of the hammer and the gentleness of water to open up the pores of the leather, and the combined effect of the sun and Northern wind to dry it out,” he explains in a rush of words, proudly explaining how his creations have been showcased in temples of art and design such as the Milan Triennale, Homo Faber in Venice and Le cabinet des curiosités in Paris and Bangkok.

The fine craftsmanship of Bottega Conticelli translates into an authenticity that is found in the creative effort of the artisan-artist. It takes its distance from imitation and mass production, maintaining the character of uniqueness and authenticity in the techniques, workmanship, use of materials, and aesthetic sensitivity of Stefano Conticelli, who today heads a small team of “intelligent hands”. Conticelli creates new stories and outstanding products for an exclusive clientele. In addition to the Vespa, he makes customised bicycles, to which he has dedicated the PedalandoForte project in Forte dei Marmi (the idea of covering the most ecological vehicle of all with leather is inspired by a return to time-honoured Tuscan saddlery techniques). Not to mention bags, household furnishings (like the trunks embellished with corner guards, hinges and locks made by a skilled Italian metal craftsman) and objects for leisure time. And then, of course, there are the horses, Stefano’s lifelong passion, and one that represents a “living” dimension of his production: from the sculptures he made for the Cheval Résonnant installation presented at the CSIO in Piazza di Siena, in Rome, to the rocking horse featured on the leather-embossed logo of Bottega Conticelli Selleria, his inimitable mark of authenticity. Mastering materials such as leather, fabrics, wool, jute and wood requires a well-defined know-how, because every “dream” needs authenticity to come to life.

The opening of the new exhibition space on the ground floor of Palazzo Bracci, in the medieval heart of Orvieto, represents the natural evolution of the workshop. An invitation to set out on a journey, to discover the authentic beauty of all things “Made in Conticelli”.

The Sound Of Talent

Andrea Tomasi

“Just listen, listen to that sound.” Nicoletta Caraceni, daughter of Ferdinando, tailor to Milan’s industrialists and intelligentsia in the last third of the century, picks up two seemingly identical fabric cuts, folding and then stretching them between her thumbs and forefingers. “This has a full sound, while the other one is hollow. It’s one of the first things my father taught me: ’Nicoletta, remember that fabrics sing. You need to learn to listen to them.’ And so, to this day, I still make them sing, to figure out which one is right.”

Father is a word that comes up frequently in Nicoletta’s conversation, because hers is a story of the deepest kind of daughterly love. This strong-willed woman has managed to make a name for herself in a male-dominated world in which no one, except her father, seemed prepared to believe in her. And she does not hide the devotion, admiration and gratitude she feels for the man who, as a boy, set out from Ortona in search of fortune. “My father went to work in a tailor’s shop when he was very young, and by the time he turned 16, he was a fully-trained tailor. So, he went up to Milan to work for Domenico Caraceni, with whom he shared the same surname but only a distant kinship. Caraceni had become the greatest tailor of his day by inventing a style that combined Neapolitan tradition with English tailoring, the secrets of which he gleaned by unstitching and mending the suits that Ortona-born composer Francesco Paolo Tosti, who taught singing in the court of Queen Victoria, used to give to his relatives when he returned to Abruzzo from London.”

Ferdinando watched and learned, but in 1943 he had to leave for the war. This is where the story begins to resemble a novel: after the armistice, the Germans captured him and locked him up in a prison camp, from which he managed to escape by volunteering to put out a fire. Holed up for weeks in a cellar in Berlin, he was found by the Russians who, instead of sending him back to Italy, put him on an eastbound train, from which he again managed to escape thanks to a travel companion who realised they were being tricked by looking at the stars. “That’s when my father understood the importance of a good education, a point he always insisted on with my sister and I.”

Nicoletta did indeed study, graduating in Foreign Languages and Literature at the Cattolica University in Milan, where she also began working as an assistant. But then… “The atelier got the better of me. After all, it was where I grew up. On Saturdays and Sundays, I used to accompany my father to the workshop, even though I was always hoping he would take me to the merry-go-round instead. I grew up surrounded by fabrics and their chant, watching him work, absorbing by osmosis, even though at first it never crossed my mind I would ever pick up this craft. Up to a certain age I did not even realise what my father was actually doing: to me it was just like any other job. My perception changed when he took me to Paris to deliver some clothes to his customers. We made the rounds of grand houses, where I was introduced to real-life legends: Hélène Rochas, Nicola Caracciolo and Yves Saint Laurent himself. We were seated in his living room, there was a portrait by Andy Warhol on the wall and artworks everywhere. I felt overwhelmed by all that beauty. Then the designer entered the room and embracing my father he said, ‘Bonjour Maestro!’ Saint Laurent, the number one couturier, was calling my father Maestro.” Although it was too late to learn how to cut and sew, Nicoletta set about mastering all the secrets of the fitting room: the differences in tone, weight and material of fabrics, the different techniques, the fundamental art of understanding and serving the customer, anticipating his needs, guiding him in the choice of a garment that was destined to accompany him through the years, far beyond any fleeting fad. In 2004, when Ferdinando died, the predestined daughter decided to move on, fending off the sharks that were closing in on her. “My father’s tailoring business was coveted by many. Some of them openly told me that I should sell, that I would never pull it off, that it was not a woman’s job. But the more they provoked me, the more the challenge seemed innovative, stimulating, feminist. Twenty years later I’m still here, carrying on a tradition in the name of my father: the fabrics and techniques are still the ones he used, everything is handmade by us, from the interior quilting to the shoulder pads. I can’t tell you how many times I have been asked to open a corner in New York, to increase production. But my answer is always the same: no, thank you. We make a maximum of 350 suits a year. Beyond that I wouldn’t be able to guarantee the quality that made my father’s reputation. ’You have to work to fly the Caraceni flag high. The Caraceni name alone won’t do the work for you,’ he always used to say.”

Growing the business, increasing production, Nicoletta goes on to explain, would mean not being able to follow closely those who work in the workshop, to guide them and to establish with them the right professional and human relationship. “There are no more than ten artisans working in the tailoring shop, including a few young people who, after training with us on an internship programme financed by the Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d’Arte, I decided to employ. When I hire someone new, I tell them that they have to be patient, that they mustn’t be afraid of making mistakes, because this craft is learned by doing and undoing. Once a customer asked my father, who was already in his eighties, if he hadn’t grown tired of coming to the workshop every day. He looked at him and replied: ’How can I get tired if there is always something new to learn?’”

Leaving A Paper Trail

Stefania Montani

Harnessing a talent for manual activities and creativity under the guidance of master artisans to transform one’s fragilities into a new life opportunity and increase self-confidence: this is what prompted the ambitious project of Vincenzo Muccioli, the visionary entrepreneur who established the Community of San Patrignano in the late 1970s. Forty years down the line, the artisan ateliers that have flourished within the Community have become internationally recognised centres of excellence. “The Design Lab groups together San Patrignano’s workshops, which include weaving, leatherwork, carpentry, metalwork and wallpaper,” tells us Luca Giunta, sales manager at SanPa. “Today, about 200 young people are employed in the workshops. In over 40 years, San Patrignano has taken in 26,000 youths, of which more than 1,000 are currently living in our community.”

One of the jewels in the crown is the Wallpaper Laboratory, an extraordinary atelier that conceives, designs and produces wallpapers for major architects and designers, such as Peter Marino in New York, Michael Smith in Los Angeles, Thomas Hamel in Australia, Paolo Moschino in London, Piero Castellini Baldissera in Milan, to name but a few.

The manager of the San Patrignano Design Lab is Sandro Pieri, who also oversees all the stages involved in making the paper. “It all started when Renzo Mongiardino, a great architect with truly exceptional taste, was brought to San Patrignano by the Moratti family, which has long been a generous benefactor of this community. He came with a group of outstanding artisans who not only crafted the decorations for the founder’s home, but also taught our young guests the techniques by providing them with a real apprenticeship. It was the 1980s: the young people from back then are today’s masters. I was one of them,” confides Sandro, who experienced first-hand all the stages of the struggle to his rebirth.

The wallpapers they make hang out to dry on the walls of the bright warehouse full of long tables. Some are born from the imagination of the young people working in the laboratory, others are commissioned by major interior design brands. “This is where the youngsters interpret the architect’s ideas by hand,” he explains. “Once the sample has been created, they work with stencils, screen printing or they paint freehand with oil or watercolours. The patterns range from contemporary to classic designs, from reproductions of Portuguese or Neapolitan tiles to geometric motifs, from floral decorations to other reminiscent of Mongiardino’s sophisticated style, and even textile reproductions. We have a huge archive, which we store in many drawers: it would be nice if we could create a permanent exhibition with all the prototypes, so we could show them to the students who come to visit our workshops every year.”

The secret of the high quality of their wallpapers also lies in the organisation of the workshop. In a way, it replicates that of a family business, with the generational handing over of the baton after 3 or 4 years of apprenticeship.

“Learning a craft to the best of one’s ability is a great opportunity that the Community of San Patrignano offers, not only as an antidote to addiction, but also to help those in search of a future, those who feel unfit for life,” continues Sandro Pieri. “Through their daily work, every boy and girl here can put themselves to the test and discover, or rediscover, their potential. It takes perseverance. In craftsmanship, competence requires a theoretical and practical knowledge of materials, techniques, and strict rules and practices. SanPa’s young people represent a ’competence’ that is not just technical, but is also empathy, talent, personal commitment to improvement. Above all, this training enables them to take back the reins of their lives. Needless to say, it is very demanding, but if you wake up in the morning with the desire to do this kind of work, then, even if the effort is great, the battle is already won!” he concludes. “We are proud of this project, because craftsmanship saves our youngsters and our youngsters save craftsmanship.”

A course to introduce a digital angle to the craft has recently been launched. “We will always work with our hands, because it is therapeutic. But we want to make sure the young people here also know how to approach technology: for example, to create renderings with the architects’ programmes, and to deal with contemporary design.”

In recent years, in addition to developing the ideas provided by architects and designers, the workshop has been commissioned important interior design projects. These include the Bulgari shop windows all over the world. A great satisfaction for these young craftspeople of excellence, and the fulfilment of a great expectation.

If, as we believe, beauty will save the world, San Patrignano and its young talents are the most extraordinary and touching example of all: a place of excellence and passion that has been, and will be, Tolkien’s star of Eärendil: a light in dark places, when all other lights go out.

A Head Full Of Wonders

Antonio

Mancinelli

Francesco Ballestrazzi is very particular about the way in which people refer to his hats. The Fondazione Cologni bestowed upon him the Maestro d’Arte e Mestiere award, but the road he has travelled to get to his whimsical head sculptures, “tangible thoughts” that look like they have just stepped out of his mind, is a long, complex and varied one. His headpieces are playful complements of the body whose ideas they are designed to protect.

So, when a prestigious Australian department store referred to them as “caps”, it not only seemed to undermine the object itself, but also his creative flair. Born forty years ago in Carpi (Modena), Ballestrazzi is a globetrotter by vocation. He has the quiet yet combative demeanour of those who face life with Calvinian levity, attempting to make the very best out of every experience. He is one of the few in Italy to perpetuate the traditional craft of the hatmaker: creators of striking and spectacular “objects for the head”, through which they actually manage to express themselves. “I started out as a contemporary dancer, so I was talking with my body. Then I injured my ankles in an accident: that put an end to my career, but it gave birth to another one, which allows me to talk with my hands.”

With a smidgen of vanity, he refers to himself as a “milliner”: a butterfly with silk wings perched forever on the rim of a hat to pollinate thoughts. The feathers of a tropical parrot, cut out one by one in silk, are used to create a lightweight, colourful headpiece. Fragile, sustained garlands are ready to frame the face. Long vintage feathers pierce the Bauhaus structure of deconstructed toques. They all represent examples of “creativity, that is, the ability to conceive new ideas and products, which differentiate an artisan from a master, an object from a masterpiece, a simple task from time-honoured expertise. In craftsmanship, creativity is a dynamic force, a mixture of vision, passion and exceptional skills,” as Alberto Cavalli writes with Giuditta Comerci and Giovanna Marchello in the volume The Master’s Touch published by the Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d’Arte, which also summoned him to the latest edition of Homo Faber. An event that Ballestrazzi refers to as “a dream come true.”

His atelier is located in Milan, in Via dell’Orso, where he reigns supreme with the apparent, deliberate calm of someone who has all the time in the world, when in actual fact he has countless tasks to fulfil.

The point is that, besides his loved ones, the thing he adores most is not the dazzling fashion system with its hectic deadlines. What he really enjoys is doing things alone: he doesn’t even have an assistant. So, he likes to create each model taking as much time as is necessary, with an approach that has something revolutionary about it: shunning the insane turnover of “products” (another word he hates), even when they belong to elite cultural, aesthetic or artistic systems, in the name of the kind of perseverance that reminds us of Gustave Flaubert’s words: “talent is a long patience.” In his case, it wasn’t just about his patience, but also about his boundless curiosity and very humble approach. He spent the first years of his apprenticeship working with Alexander McQueen, then with Moschino, where he asked to learn everything from scratch. This led him to become an artisan-designer, who first imagines and then executes his projects.

“I’ve always had this gift, which I consider a benevolent kind of schizophrenia: on the one hand, I let my imagination run free, but on the other I can clearly envisage – like a sudden revelation – how I can, or could, actually go about making it.”

In 2011, he established Francesco Ballestrazzi Hats & Creations, to which he has now added the word Artisanal, to emphasise the manual skill that goes into every headpiece. “Even the hats with a visor, which proved a real hit in Japan, although they complained about a few imperceptible flaws, which are inherent in handmade items.” It’s a pity that he was misunderstood. As John Ruskin, the 19th-century philosopher who summed up the key concepts of the Arts and Crafts movement, wrote in his book The Stones of Venice: “No good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art.”

In the same way, imperfection allows Francesco Ballestrazzi to draw a lesson from every obstacle, helping him solve problems and overcome the limitations imposed by materials, purposes and the desires of his clients.

ITALY’S GREAT HERITAGE AND ITS CUSTODIANS

Alessandra de Nitto

The road of artistic crafts is not an easy one, but it is certainly a dimension in which we can reconsider the role of skill and expertise, the power of experience, the strong pre-eminence of the individual, the awe of the aura, the mystery of beauty, the happiness of competition.

— Cesare De Michelis

Italy is a hothouse of Beauty, an open-air museum: no other country in the world can boast such a concentration of incredible art treasures. On top of this is the great appeal our country exerts, and how much it is admired all over the world. But that’s not all: those who visit Italy - often more than the Italians themselves, it has to be said - are increasingly discovering, appreciating and loving its unparalleled heritage of fine craftsmanship. A legacy that touches every area of our peninsula, making it a veritable mine of outstanding know-how rooted in the local territories, their raw materials and time-honoured traditions. This many-faceted cultural wealth must be preserved, promoted and protected as an integral part of Italy’s “Great Beauty”. The guardians of this heritage are the many outstanding Schools scattered across Italy, which ensure the transmission of knowledge to the new generations. To these institutions, which often boast centuries of tradition, is entrusted the exceptional but far from easy task of keeping unique skills alive, and ensuring they are passed on. A fundamental need also for our country’s economic and productive system. Tradition is vital and constantly evolving in every sector of fine crafts: from mosaics (Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli in Spilimbergo), to glass (Scuola del Vetro Abate Zanetti in Murano), to ceramics (with the legendary art institutes of Faenza and Caltagirone); from goldsmithing (Istituto d’Arte Pietro Selvatico in Padova), to watchmaking (Tarì Design School in Marcianise), to metal engraving (Scuola dell’Arte della Medaglia of Rome); from leather goods (Alta Scuola di Pelletteria Italiana in Scandicci), to shoemaking (Politecnico Calzaturiero in Vigonza) and tailoring (Scuola di Sartoria Nazareno Fonticoli in Penne); from the crafts of the theatre (Accademia Teatro alla Scala in Milan), to violin making (Scuola Internazionale di Liuteria, Cremona), all the way to food and wine (Alma, La Scuola Internazionale di Cucina Italiana in Colorno).

The jewels in Italy’s crown are its four main Schools of Higher Education in Restoration. Admired throughout the world, they represent unique educational institutions linked to our immense artistic heritage. Italian art restorers, renowned for their talent and expertise, are called upon to work on major public and private conservation projects: the Istituto Superiore per la Conservazione ed il Restauro, the Istituto Centrale per il Restauro e la Conservazione del Patrimonio Archivistico e Librario in Rome, the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence and the Centro Conservazione e Restauro La Venaria Reale in Turin.

“The very existence of these Schools represents the most effective means for the protection of our artistic and artisan traditions and, in some cases, the only safeguard against the permanent loss of the time-honoured traditions of Italian creativity,” writes Giovanni Puglisi, President Emeritus of the Italian National Commission for UNESCO.

All of them offer a wide and complex range of courses, reflecting a wealth of invaluable richness and complexity. They include public institutes of national standing, training schools with traditional ties to the local area, and institutions set up by far-sighted private companies to protect and perpetuate a legacy of culture and production that must not be lost.

These Schools celebrate the daily rituals of skilfully crafted beauty: directors, principals, educational coordinators and lecturers - often juggling many difficulties and not enough recognition - shoulder the responsibility for welcoming, motivating and training young people. Moulding their talent through discipline, morality and the principle of a well-done job, without which even the greatest passion leads nowhere.

Schools that are not, as one might imagine, temples or sanctuaries of knowledge, but living places, forges where talent is combined every day with manual skill. Where tradition is renewed also through the use of the most advanced technologies, precious allies of savoir-faire, and where teaching passes through example and practice, according to the eternal lesson of the Renaissance workshop, which continues to thrive here.

Alongside these great examples are the many Schools committed to disseminating and protecting knowledge, offering young people a fascinating and practical perspective of professional training that is based on passion and talent. The website scuolemestieridarte.it maps this network, providing the first useful directory to offer orientation and information. It includes hundreds of schools of arts and crafts throughout Italy, which are open to interested and curious young people with enough talent and courage to embrace an artistic craft. We hope that many will go on to become the master craftspeople of tomorrow. “Not vases to be filled, but fires to be lit.” (Quintilian)

Costumes From The Soul

Giovanna Marchello

Interpretation is one of the cornerstones of all forms of artistic expression. Without interpretation, a piece of music, a play or a painting would not be able to manifest itself in an original way, arousing new and diverse emotions in the public. As Alberto Cavalli reminds us in The Master’s Touch, outstanding craftsmanship cannot exist without interpretation. Indeed, thanks to their interpretation, master artisans mould and give full meaning to an idea, generating objects that are at once beautiful, original, personal and useful.

For 50 years, Venetian master costume designer Stefano Nicolao has been a refined interpreter of the visions of directors and of the personalities of actors and singers. He does not just execute: he actually translates an artistic vision into a costume that represents a character, an emotion, an idea.

Nicolao’s passion for art germinated at a tender age. At 13, he stood up to his parents - who wanted him to become a bookkeeper - and managed to enrol in art school instead. “I was attracted by that scene. I also had a natural inclination: I liked to draw and create things with my hands. I felt I wasn’t cut out for mathematics, which was far too rational, with all its postulates and rules, for a hothead like me.” This training was to prove essential to his future career as a costume designer, along with his passion for the theatre. During his high school years, Nicolao began to work as an extra at La Fenice theatre. He enrolled in university to study architecture, scenography and costume design, and delighted in making costumes and painting sets, even behind the scenes of the theatres where he performed on stage. He thus found himself “learning the trade with the eyes” and realised that this was his calling. Then came his first successes as an actor (“Strehler wanted me to perform in Il Campiello”) alongside a fairly important career in TV and radio. “But I always missed being behind the scenes,” he recalls. “I decided that what I wanted to do was design costumes, even though my parents didn’t approve. They told me I wouldn’t be able to make ends meet.”

Nicolao found a position as a tailor’s assistant in a theatre in Trieste, under the direction of Maestro Angelo Delle Piane. “He made me work alongside him as a fabric cutter, and follow the rehearsals. Just as in a Renaissance workshop, he showed me how you can trace out a costume from just the measurements.” In the late 1970s, aged 25, he took over his old master’s job, and after a series of successful seasons, Enrico Sabbatini asked him to work, directly on the slopes of the Himalayas, on the television drama Marco Polo directed by Giuliano Montaldo “It was a milestone, not so much for my career but for my personal experience.” Back in Venice, he realised that the city lacked a point of reference for theatre and cinema. Thus he founded Nicolao Atelier and continued his successful partnerships with the best Italian and foreign directors. But how is a costume conceived? The creative process follows a precise pattern, and is always and above all based on interpretation. “First and foremost, you have to be familiar with the text or screenplay, and understand it. You need to know the characters, how and where and in what period it is set, and of course you need to have a grasp of the director’s vision. Through the costumes, you have to evoke the spirit of the character.” The abstract idea first takes shape in sketches that sum up the form the costume will actually take. The fabrics and accessories are then chosen and everything is discussed with the director. “When you get to the dress rehearsal, you can tell if you are on the right track. If the director approves, my work is finished and it passes on to the actors. My advantage is that I was once an actor myself, and I know what it means to be helped by the right costume.” As was the case with Stefano Dionisi, star of the film Farinelli: Nicolao went to see him in Paris for the fitting of the costumes. After a few minutes of silence, Dionisi enthusiastically exclaimed that he had finally understood who Farinelli really was! “The costume induces an attitude, it forces you to become aware of the character you are playing.” As far as Nicolao is concerned, interpretation does not end here. “I usually choose the materials because they call me. It is something deep inside me, telling me what is right. Before I make a costume, I have this vision of how it is supposed to be. I envisage how it is made, and only very rarely does that change. It often happens the first time I meet the director to discuss it. There is an overlapping of interpretations between my soul as an artist and my soul as a craftsman. When an artist paints, he gives voice to an emotion and portrays it. The artisan has to add specific knowledge of the materials, and of how the artefact must be treated. The goal is to match the final idea with the director’s vision and the text.”

Nicolao Atelier represents Italian excellence for the uniqueness and refinement of its productions. The “Maestro” believes that the legacy of knowledge and experience he has gained over the years should not only be protected but also shared with the new generations. This is confirmed by his team of young collaborators, who engage with him in new interpretations every day. In the name of art and craftsmanship.

CONTEMPORARY META-LUXURY

Alberto Cavalli

When Eleonore Cavalli, Art Director of Visionnaire, inaugurated the new Dubai showroom with her brother Leopold (the company CEO) in November 2021, her words were already tracing the evolution of the brand towards the future: “We want to be ambassadors of a beauty strongly connected with our Italian origins, of course, but which nonetheless speaks a universal language: that of authentic, radical sustainability, associated both to respect for the environment and to the comprehensive growth of people, for the benefit of local territories and communities.”

The change in Visionnaire’s corporate bylaws, in January 2022, which led to the company becoming a Benefit Corporation, thus represents the expected and desired goal that Eleonore and Leopold have been pursuing for years: to combine avant-garde design, top-class craftsmanship, international distribution and a respectful attitude towards the ecosystem in an innovative way, in order to create a consistent, effective and new business model. New, because it is the result of a contemporary awareness of the impact that our actions have on the environment. New, because it is connected to the increasingly widespread need to give meaning to people’s daily work, to the community, to the individual expression of talent. New, finally, because the world of luxury is sometimes slow in embracing similar revolutions, while Visionnaire has been one of the first companies in the multifaceted world of design to take this brave step.

This is the innovation that Italian beauty needs in order to maintain its relevance: not mere changes, but profound awareness and courageous decisions. In the wake of its yearning for conscious innovation, since 2004 Visionnaire has been able to create a personal and meaningful language to communicate excellence and beauty, developing tailor-made products for discerning and imaginative customers. Visionnaire’s furnishing solutions generate advantages for many: “We work with exceptional craftspeople, we select raw materials according to a very scrupulous ethical code, we try to involve our co-workers in a structured way in the pursuit of our ideal of beauty,” states Eleonore Cavalli. “Leopold and I represent the third generation of the family business, called upon to accompany IPE (the parent company, Ed.) and Visionnaire into the future. We have decided to take this step, and become a Benefit Corporation, because this is the future we envisage. To work well, to seek beauty, and to build a responsible and conscious community.” Innovation, for Visionnaire, does not only mean incorporating new ideas into its collections, but also collaborating with artists, designers, artisans to develop a new paradigm, which Eleonore Cavalli describes as Meta-luxury: uniqueness, preciousness, fine craftsmanship, original design. All the traditional elements ingrained in the brand’s identity are preserved, as they are the basis of Visionnaire’s own identity. “But now we have to move in a new direction: luxury is not only about possessing, but also about conveying,” affirms Eleonore. Thus, Meta-luxury is also awareness of what is truly sustainable, and not only desirable. Of what is not only beautiful, but also meaningful. Renowned for its iconic furnishings, often embellished with precious marbles and rare gemstones, Visionnaire has always capitalised on the talent and skills of the artisans and workshops that constitute its constellation of reliable partners to create new collections, often stemming from the kaleidoscopic vision of a team of internationally acclaimed designers.

Investing in beauty, sustainability and innovation has proven to be both wise and fruitful, especially in these uncertain times: “Visionnaire confirms its vocation for bespoke design, and its ability to provide unique solutions with great personality, implementing the design concept at every stage,” remarked Leopold Cavalli. After all, if luxury is about personality and attitude, Meta-luxury is about allowing this personality to express itself in memorable objects, which are never just “things”, but are always meaningful creations of human talent, created to make their fortunate owners conscious of their role: not just customers, but commissioners. This drive for innovation should not be taken for granted. But it has enabled Visionnaire to continue to grow, following the positive trend of recent years, fostering the Renaissance-style paradigm in which Leopold and Eleonore firmly believe: sustaining the local entrepreneurial framework through the model of the widespread factory, and investing in research and development on the sustainability of materials and processes, thus consolidating a business model that minimises waste, consumption and scrap.

A Benefit Corporation creates workplaces, growth and development. But it also creates something more, something new: the insight that the pleasure of making generates beauty. The one and only factor that we will always need.

OUR LADY OF CERAMICS Ugo La Pietra

Thanks to her passion for ceramics, deeply connected with the great tradition of Faenza pottery, and to her interest in the manufacturing world (without, however, being directly involved in it), Antonietta Mazzotti exemplifies the contemporary role of the artisan-artist. Her production consists mainly of one-off pieces, which are only virtually inspired by functional objects. Her works convey an original expressive language, both in her technique and in her “poetic” representation. In a recent collective exhibition staged at the Milan Triennale, entitled “Fittile, Artigianato artistico italiano nella ceramica contemporanea”, which focused on “vase-inspired” object, I included her amongst the ceramicists who have the ability to transform and transfigure the vase with an original, creative approach in reinventing an object so deeply tied to our collective memory. In revising an object as consolidated as the vase, talented ceramicists sometimes refer themselves to anthropomorphic or zoomorphic shapes. In the case of Antonietta Mazzotti, her works are original because she introduces formal elements inspired by the natural world: flowers, fruit, plants of oriental origin such as peony petals and aspidistra or gingko biloba leaves, not to mention the mysterious magic of coral. Nature in all its expressive forms underpins Antonietta Mazzotti’s interests and passion. Her original technique re-elaborates and introduces us to her work with a sculptural approach to the material itself. The Selene vase is the one that best represents her ability to steer the object towards a sculptural deformation, which brings a naturally elegant form of transgression to the traditional shape. In particular, this work reveals how elements of natural inspiration (in this case, the corolla of a voluptuous flower) take on new values thanks to the use of “monochrome”: the green glossy or opaque glaze allows the object to discard its former references and develop an aesthetic of its own, which conveys different, personal suggestions to the observer. The gold, which she uses in the third firing to underscore some of the details, highlights just how exquisite her creations are. “Nature is the gentlest, sweetest muse of them all,” Antonietta Mazzotti explains. It is in the combination of colours and symbols from the floral world that her collections or site-specific installations take form, as in the case of the Bambù vase collection, in which the artist arranges different vases in a sequence along the walls, as if forming an abstract installation.

Nonetheless, the work of Antonetta Mazzotti, which is often showcased in ceramic exhibitions in Italy and abroad (particularly the US and Japan), remains true to Faenza. It can be admired in the shop windows of the city centre, and in the neo-gothic glasshouse of Villa Emaldi, her atelier and laboratory. This location, where she also devotes herself intensely to teaching, sums up her creative approach to perfection, surrounded by the 19th-century nature of the Villa’s grounds, which feature also monumental plants and exotic species. Her bond with Faenza’s tradition is both cultural and affective. The artist’s works, which develop through modified essential shapes, represent an example of contemporary ceramics that coexists with more traditional objects, also thanks to her ability to reinterpret Faenza’s traditional ceramics with grotesquestyle decorative details, or references to classic Renaissance motifs. A stunning example of this approach can be seen in the grotesque-style decorations in blue and gold maiolica she created for Collect-The International Art Fair for Contemporary Objects at London’s Saatchi Gallery. Her artisan and cultural roots add even more value to her ability to breathe new life into traditional forms and decorative effects. Faenza’s is a long-standing tradition, and one that continues to serve as an international benchmark for ceramic artists everywhere. Her originality lies in her ability to express, with talent, harmony and elegance, works that contain elements inspired by Faenza’s tradition, but with an innovative take full of unexpected surprises.

The Olympics Of Virtuosity

Alessandro

Bardelli

In a key passage of his Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant sums up the relationship between aesthetics and poiesis: “Genius is the talent (natural endowment) which gives the rule to art. Since talent, as an innate productive faculty of the artist, belongs itself to nature, we may put it this way: Genius is the innate mental aptitude (ingenium) through which nature gives the rule to art.” Going beyond the similarity in terms of the object itself, the philosopher identifies the connection between nature and genius in the productive moment: nature’s creative spontaneity corresponds to an interweaving of reason and imagination that changes the image of historically determined reality, conveying a new meaning.

Every day, this quietly unfolds with arcane wisdom and contemporary passion in the workshop of luthier Guido Mariotto, in Porto Mantovano. His stringed instruments have cast aside archetypal shapes and are reinterpreted in original forms of expression. This is particularly true of the double bass, a sublime icon of refined Western music. The deepest of all stringed instruments first made its appearance in the 16th century, but only achieved solo status between the 19th and 20th centuries. Romantic virtuoso performances, jazz and the avant-garde are merely the most recent stages of what the double bass player Stefano Scodanibbio defines as an “instrumental Renaissance”. They allow us to appreciate strength and expressive intensity, timbre, colour, physicality and spiritual depth, sounds that are textured and harmonious, gentle, fragile and distant. Nonetheless this emancipation is as yet incomplete because, thanks to its innate ductility, the contemporary double bass catalyses experimental experiences in the world of violin-making, composition and performance, from which it constantly transmutes into something new and unprecedented. At the 2021 Concorso Triennale Internazionale in Cremona, the Olympics of violin making, for the first time a double bass made by Guido Mariotto won the gold medal in its category, the best overall score and the Stauffer prize for acoustic quality. An acknowledgement of the artisan’s extraordinary talent, and of a life dedicated to the instrument and to making it. “There has never been a shortage of double basses in my home. My father Gianni is an orchestra professor, but he also used to build instruments. I owe my passion for violin making, and a particular love of this instrument, to him. He used to smile when I would amuse myself slipping small toys into the soundboard through the F-holes. As a teenager, I started working with him, rough-cutting a few pieces. Every day I acquired a new skill. When I finished high school, I went into making stringed instruments full-time”.

The culture of the artisan workshop, characterised by constant innovation and experimentation, translates into a laboratory not only of techniques but also and above all of ideas. “I attended several workshops, in addition to my father’s. With Maestro Gianni Massagrande I perfected sculpting and carving. With Maestro Mario Gadda I learnt how to build violins and violas. I owe them a great deal. Mine was the last generation to have had this opportunity. Since then, training is done mainly in school. But the teaching standards are still high.” An important lesson also comes from the great luthiers of the Mantuan school. “My models are inspired by their work, in particular by Stefano Scarampella.” The latter, moreover, also taught Gaetano Gadda, Mario’s father, thus tracing a line of continuity spanning one and a half centuries.

Maestro Mariotto’s talent lies in his ability to reinterpret this tradition as well as to give material form to the aesthetic desires and needs of musicians: “The dialogue with the performer is fundamental, all the more so since, in recent decades, technique and repertoire have undergone radical changes. The quest for the perfect sound never ends.” The double bass that won the Concorso Triennale competition was the finest outcome of this particular journey. Purchased by the Museo del Violino, it is displayed alongside masterpieces by Stradivarius and Guarneri, as well as the great Mantuan violin makers of the last century. “It’s an incredible emotion. The place and the event are, without doubt, incredibly important. But I also feel I have continued my father’s work, and somehow enhanced it.”

In fact, it is something he does every day in the peacefulness of a workshop where he builds exceptional cellos and double basses with the simplicity of a man who works as a refined craftsman but thinks like a great master. Mariotto has harnessed a talent that is an instinctive vocation to pursue a line of work with a practical yet relaxed approach. It is a natural, intangible gift, constantly renewed through work and study. For this very reason, talented artisans are living treasures endowed with a keen sensitivity to materials and their potential, with an innate predisposition to perfection. They are aware that their gift is also a responsibility and they cultivate it with discipline, perseverance and patience, so that it can manifest itself in beauty, mastery and freedom of expression. All features that nurture one another, just like the harmonious sounds of a double bass.

The Miracle Of Glass

Jean Blanchaert

Many films, plays and operas re-enact a bygone world that is always quite compelling. And if those watching the performance are what Alessandro Fersen defines “naïve spectators” (where naïve does not mean ingenious, but simply someone who is carried away by the drama), the return to reality is always with something of a bump.

If the simulation of yesteryear’s world is an intense experience, it becomes positively overwhelming when lived first-hand. This happens when we come across communities in which time has stood still for centuries, impervious to advances in technology and, in some cases, even to thinking.

Passing through the Jewish orthodox quarter of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, for example, one is immersed in an atmosphere evocative of 18th-century Eastern Europe. Walking briskly and confidently, attired in their elegant, archaic garments, the men and women retrace footsteps dating back a thousand years: a sight that makes one gasp in awe.

A similar emotion is experienced by visitors to Murano who enter its renowned furnaces. Thanks to my mother, who was an antiquarian and a gallery owner, I had the opportunity to frequent the world of glass and its protagonists – the master glassmakers – from a very early age. And, after fifty years, I still feel the same sense of wonder. My work consists primarily in observing, selecting and evaluating the artefacts turned out by those furnaces. Despite the fact that the gallery owner and the curator represent the last link in this magical chain, they are nonetheless an important part of the process. Just like in Mea Shearim, time in Murano seems to have stood still, and the gestures are the same as they were centuries ago. Although in the early 20th century glassmaking opened up to new forms and ideas, it has resisted the advent of automation, which now plays a major role in the processing of stone, marble and recently even ceramics. Some of the master craftspeople working with these materials only intervene during the final stages of the manufacturing process. Glass is altogether a different matter. In the savannah, you light a fire to keep lions at bay. In the furnace, new technologies are fended off by the 1,200 degrees of the vitreous mass moulded by the master glassmaker. Hic sunt leones: when it comes to glass, you cannot programme a shape, design it, put it into a computer and wait for the finished or semi-finished product to come out at the other end. What exactly are the mysteries, the hydrogeological prerogatives of this island that make glassmaking in Murano so extraordinary? In actual fact, they do not exist. The only great raw material is the human element, the knowledge and savoir-faire that the master glassmakers have been handing down for over a thousand years, ever since Venice banished furnaces in 1291 due to the many blazes they had caused. Murano’s territorial nature is a purely cultural one. In Murano, glass still communicates through transparencies and a range of colours yielded by the Venetian Republic’s relations with the Orient.

As early as the 15th century, the expertise of Murano’s glassmakers was considered extraordinary, unique, and a byword for the utmost prestige. The most illustrious exponents of the craft were entitled to wear a sword, and pick a wife from the ranks of the Venetian nobility. Their knowledge was a jealouslyguarded state secret. Today, a major crisis triggered by the cost of gas (and a general decline in taste) is affecting the island. Yet important artists still flock to Murano from all over the world to see their ideas crafted in glass by the master glassmaker, the master’s assistant, the assistant, the under-assistant, the shop boy and his helper. It is like a synchronised ballet that has remained unchanged, without a safety net, throughout the course of time. It is one of the great wonders of Creation.

Every day, translucent sculptures that have captured the light of Venice’s lagoon leave the island and are dispatched to collectors, gallery owners, museums and foundations. The name of the master glassmaker is not always mentioned: but a signature is not necessary to recognise a style, a technique, an intuition. And when the master glassmaker walks along the island’s Fondamenta Vetrai to go and play cards with his friends, he is surrounded by an aura. A prime example is the great Lino Tagliapietra. To this day, thanks to Murano’s insular, isolated nature, the material is given value, the workmanship is prized and artistic ideas are brought to life. A true meaning is given to that “Made In” label, which is not just geographical, but also a wonderful, if difficult, history.

THE LEG OF PEGUY’S CHAIR

Andrea

Sinigaglia

Pietro, son of the late Stefano. And so it begins all over again. Could there be a more sublime way of – literally – giving a name to tradition? I am, because I have been. I am what I am today, because I was begotten.

This is the way things have been going for seven generations in a confectionery workshop in Genoa. Today it’s Pietro Romanengo’s turn - descendant of other Stefanos and Pietros - to carry the sweet burden that his ancestors have handed down to him. A place that, as the current “torchbearer” likes to stress, could only have originated here. Here in Genoa, thanks to its harbour and its connections to Asia, thanks to the Arab culture and to the possibility of exporting goods all over the world. And, above all, thanks to the all-Italian mastery of using sugar to preserve and imitate nature. After all, “Italians do it better”.

Everything that fills the nostrils, everything you see when you walk into the atelier in Via Mojon, just a stone’s throw from Brignole railway station, smells of alchemy, of something noble, of gratitude. Don’t call it a business, call it a laboratory. Don’t call them departments, call them workshops. Workshops that came about thanks to specialities invented by the inspired men who first created and then sold them, joining forces to showcase their skills. Since 1780, candied fruits have been prepared here in a secret candying workshop where the soul of the fruit is captured in a skilfully crafted, sugary chrysalid. The seasons chase one another, bursting into the workshop where they are “immortalised”. The techniques used here are also the result of knowledge about the living material, and the quality of the syrup itself. Figs, chestnuts, mandarins, oranges, myrtleleaf oranges, rose petals, fruits and flowers are all prepared to last and become even more precious.

In the confectionery workshop, the sugar spins hypnotically in the basin, crystallising spices and fruit peel. Everything here is about knowledge, potions and patience. Pine nuts from Pisa, almonds from Avola but also cardamom and cinnamon. And so it is that the Orient continues to be part of the city’s history. The craft is also about ambition, and nature is not just preserved but actually mimicked; it becomes a candy, caramella in Italian, an ancient word that deserves special reverence and should be rescued from the insignificance into which it has declined. Hard, chewy, gelatinous. Sweet-making and confectionary are a very serious game. We should try to envisage the world in which it first stirred emotions, like colour hitting a black and white canvas.

But even now, the palate doesn’t mislead us when it comes across something exceptional; and that is where the benchmark is set, that is where we begin to grasp the full extent of the gastronomic art, and we begin to understand it. We all ate “sweets” when we were children, but tasting a fondant or ginevrina or a droplet of rosolio in adulthood is altogether a different matter. Many things spring to mind while wandering through the workshops of this confectionery laboratory. The city of Genova and how unique it is; the Napoleonic wars to more recent conflicts, which have affected this place and the history of the Romanengo family; the etymology of certain tools and techniques. Yet something is missing here, or rather, something is lost: time. The only thing marking time is the tireless pounding of a conching machine, which has been used in the “chocolate factory” for over a century. This slow, inexorable conching is limited to just one hundred kilograms of chocolate at a time, because that is how you have the luxury of being able to add nothing else. The luxury of making the chocolate bars by hand and wrapping them in foil, again by hand, before placing them in a box with a handmade design. For all these reasons, this place seems the perfect setting for a novel. It should be a destination for a school trip, primarily for teachers. This place is a national heritage, and the people working here are national treasures. It is a place awaiting a new renaissance, an atelier which, on discovering it, leaves one disoriented, as if it were something that needs deciphering, but not with the speed of current times. It fills you with a mixture of pride for being part of this story, for the simple fact of being Italian, of regret, because its story is not adequately recounted, and a touch of the sadness that the wonderful Charles Peguy conveyed in his book L’Argent, which we can only dedicate to the Romanengo family while we thank them for existing (and resisting).

“Once upon a time, artisans were not slaves. They worked. They cultivated an absolute honour, as befits an honour. The leg of a chair had to be well made. It was natural, it was ingrained, it was paramount. It didn’t have to be well made for the salary, or in proportion to the salary. It didn’t need to be well made for the owner, nor for connoisseurs, nor for the owner’s customers. It had to be well made for itself, because this was its very nature. The chair leg had to be well made because of a tradition that had risen from the very depths of the race, a history, something absolute, an honour. And every part of the chair had to be well made. Even those parts that couldn’t be seen had to be made with the same care as the visible ones. The same principle that applies to cathedrals. And it’s only me – with my thoroughly adulterated lineage – who makes a song and dance out of it. There wasn’t so much as a hint of reflection in them. It was just work, and you had to work well. It wasn’t about being seen, or not being seen. It was the work itself that needed to be done properly. It was an incredibly profound sentiment that nowadays we identify as the honour of sport, but back then it reigned supreme in everything. Not just the idea of obtaining the best possible outcome, but the idea of achieving more by achieving the best possible result. It was like a sport, a disinterested, continuous emulation, not just of those that did things better, but those that did more. It was a wonderful sport, and one that was practised at all hours, and which permeated life itself. It came with an enduring sense of disgust for work that was badly done. Of utter disdain for those who had worked carelessly. Yet such an intention never crossed their minds. Every honour converged in this single honour. A sense of decency, and a refinement of language. Respect for home and hearth. The very essence of respect. A constant ceremony, so to speak. Besides, home and hearth were often in the same place as the workshop; the honour of the home and honour of the workshop were one and the same. It was the honour of the same place. The honour of the same fire. What ever became of all this? Everything, from the moment they woke, was a rhythm, a ritual, a ceremony. Everything was an event, and was consecrated as such. Everything was a tradition, a lesson. Everything had its own innermost relationship and formed part of a habit that was holier than holy. Everything was about innermost elevation, about praying, every day: sleeping and waking, working and taking a measured amount of rest, about going to bed and sitting at the table, about soup and beef, home and garden, the door and the street, the courtyard and the staircase, the bowls on the table. They used to say, as a joke and to mock their priests, that working is like praying. Little did they know how much truth there was in their words.”

The Shape Of Beauty

Franco

Cologni

If you think education is expensive, said Abraham Lincoln, try ignorance. Education: regrettably, this term seems to have disappeared from the radar of social media, but also from the simplest personal and professional relationships. Instead, this word is essential in order for society to develop, for it cannot occur without personal development. This disappearance, progressive but by no means inexorable, becomes even more disturbing for those who believe in the redeeming power of beauty and its creative value. Because it is necessary to educate ourselves also to beauty, in order to be able to grasp its meaning and thus integrate it into our lives.

At the same time fragile and powerful, Italian beauty demands to be loved, admired and discovered. But, in order to love, one must be able to understand, and true understanding can only come from a measured, well-structured educational process, which is both wise and sophisticated.

Has education in beauty, along with respect, politeness and tact in speaking, in responding, in behaving, disappeared? The most ordinary rules of civilised coexistence are being broken on account of a preposterous idea of individual freedom, which in reality is more like anarchic ignorance. We offend and attack one another with cowardly violence, squandering a legacy of literature and spirit that has always distinguished the polemical vein of our country. The territory is destroyed, from our cities (where contempt and sloppiness reign) to the naturalistic areas that are truly priceless. This nihilism of the soul is harmful and generates ugliness.

Education in beauty as an academic, educational and cultural training has not yet disappeared, but it is suffering. We are struggling to provide the younger generations with the (formal) education and (often informal) self-education that has made the fortune of so many brilliant entrepreneurs, driven by curiosity and a healthy dose of ambition: to experiment, to observe, to try. Casting off the mental laziness that makes us follow the same old siren song, and instead allowing ourselves to be surprised by the deep voice of a beauty that calls for commitment, dedication, time and passion. As the Little Prince reminds us, it is the time we dedicate to things (and people) that makes them precious to us. Any authentic educational process must necessarily be costly, in terms of time: but it is also the only truly profitable investment for the future of Italian beauty. And, finally, education as the progressive moulding of character seems to be dangerously feverish. Every good sculptor knows that, in order to obtain a smooth piece of marble, it takes blows and caresses. Likewise, in order to reveal the constructive features of our personality, in order to follow our authentic vocation with happiness, we must be ready to suffer the blows delivered by the talented masters who lift the dead layers from our convictions and perceptions and “form” us, just as an artist moulds the raw material.

Today we tend to forget that educating the younger generations to beauty means ensuring a better future not only to them but also to us, to what we love, to what we care about. As difficult as it is to educate, giving it up would be extremely costly and even downright fatal. Because educating and being educated to beauty means that we can hope to build a better world: more human, more meaningful, more surprising. I hope no one will be offended if I say, in short: more Italian.