What relationship do you see today between theoretical training and workshop practice?
Today, becoming a restorer requires a highly structured theoretical path, through schools and universities. This is an important framework, but it risks leaving direct workshop experience in the background—which, for me, was fundamental. When I arrived at school, I already had years of manual work behind me, and that helped enormously. I knew well the generation of artisans before mine: they were extraordinary people who sometimes had little theoretical knowledge but could do incredible things.
To whom will you pass on your workshop and your knowledge?
My son tried to follow in my footsteps: he worked with me in the workshop for three or four years, he was passionate and truly skilled. But today, to continue, a formal path and qualifications are required, and at a certain point he chose a different direction.
In truth, it won’t be my workshop that survives me. I see it clearly: along this street I’ve already seen many workshops close. What will endure is knowledge. Over many years of teaching, I have trained many young people, some truly outstanding, who have gone on to open their own businesses. I think, for example, of Takafumi Mochizuki, a Japanese craftsman of extraordinary talent who became well known in Florence under the name Zouganista: here he found fertile ground to nurture his passion and developed a unique sensibility, becoming, in my view, a true “goldsmith of wood.” This is the most important passage: not so much leaving behind a workshop, but transmitting a craft. Even today I continue teaching, here in the workshop and at school, to Italian and international students who arrive with the desire to learn.
You specialize in the restoration of Boulle furniture, a very rare and complex field. What does it mean today to work on these objects?
Boulle furniture involves a very particular technique, as it combines different materials—metal, mother-of-pearl, resins, and in the past also tortoiseshell and ivory—and requires in-depth knowledge of each. Every element must be prepared, shaped, adapted, and then assembled with the others. It is a long process, which is becoming increasingly rare, also due to the crisis in the antiques market: both the objects themselves and major restoration projects have decreased. Restoration has also changed: it used to be more radical, whereas today the approach is more conservative, intervening as little as possible to ensure the stability and legibility of the piece. In many cases, the aim is to halt deterioration rather than return the object to a “perfect” condition. Creative freedom is limited—unless one moves to another level, closer to design, where it becomes possible to reinterpret the past and give new life to objects.
After many years in restoration, did you feel the need for a more creative space?
Yes, it’s a need that has grown over time. About fifteen years ago, I began creating something of my own, for pleasure, and gradually I realized I was too bound to the frameworks of restoration—to a very strong cultural background, but also, in a sense, a limiting one. Today I feel the need to “loosen up,” to step beyond those boundaries and seek greater expressive freedom. I am not a designer, but I am deeply fascinated by contemporary language: I often find more inspiration in contemporary art and design than in the antiques world, which was my world for many years.
My field of experimentation has become marquetry: I try to move beyond traditional schemes, to make the work freer and more personal. In recent years, I have also begun mixing different materials—for example, combining wood with cathedral glass from stained-glass windows—in order to push beyond the boundaries of the craft. Ultimately, what I seek is an emotion: something that truly feels like mine and that can resonate with others.
What future do you see for Florentine workshops?
When I arrived, there were fifteen workshops on this street; today, only three remain. It’s a clear change, one that reflects how much the context of craftsmanship has evolved.
Florence has always been a capital of crafts, with an extraordinary concentration of knowledge. Perhaps more could have been done to accompany this transformation and support artisanal work, also by making it more sustainable from a bureaucratic and fiscal point of view. Ours is a profession grounded in the hands: it cannot follow the logic of mass production. It requires time, care, and continuity.
And yet, interest has not disappeared. I can say this with conviction: many young people approach it with passion and a desire to learn.
I am glad to still represent a presence on this street. My workshop has remained as it once was: a lived-in space, marked by time. Sometimes I think about changing it, modernizing it, but then I realize it would lose something. It would no longer truly be a workshop.
