Andalusian Horse Made by Mosaico Arte E Mestieri Glass Mosaic

The awesome wonders of Milan
Alberto Cavalli
General Director, Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d'Arte

With this exhibition, the first in a series entitled "Mestieri d'Arte e Design. Crafts Culture", Triennale Milano and the Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d'Arte aim to raise the profile of a significant selection of highly creative Milanese artisans who are still making original and authentic objects today: artefacts that stir a sense of wonder and admiration. Some forty contemporary works of profound artistic and cultural significance, produced equally one-off pieces or in short runs, have been chosen to represent the 'secrets of the trade' of the same number of arts and crafts workshops and manufactories operating in the city of Milan. The dialogue is enriched by four refined Renaissance objects, also linked to Milan and lent by of import cultural institutions, that nowadays parallels with gimmicky inventiveness. Special and significant works, therefore, that were produced past the arts and crafts workshops of the time every bit exquisite and surprising artefacts: objects in which the value of the handmade evokes the centrality of talented craftsmanship and its interaction with the creative design for which Milan is rightly celebrated. The Quadreria of Triennale Milano has been turned into a contemporary version of the Renaissance cabinet of curiosities: the rule in those Wunderkammer was to fill the field of vision completely, in accordance with a principle of horror vacui. The display designed by StudioMetria, illuminated by the lighting of iGuzzini, takes its cue from the fascinating rooms of Renaissance collectors in order to offer a new experience of the exhibition space, and to let a more acute observation of the pieces that will pb from dazzler to "meaning" and thus to agreement. The images of the objects being made offer a perspective that goes across the product to reveal the process besides. Staged under the aegis of the Region of Lombardy, of the Municipality of Milan and of Fondazione Cariplo, Mirabilia is intended to make a contribution to the development of a true arrangement of the applied arts in Milan, bringing the city'south main institutions with ties to the arts and crafts together around the values of high adroitness.

Artistic vision and fine manufacturing
Stefano Boeri
Chairman, Triennale Milano
Damiano Gullì
assistant curator, Triennale Milano

Since 1923, when it was founded every bit a biennial expo with the 1st International Exhibition of the Decorative Arts at the Villa Reale in Monza, and its subsequent transfer to the Palazzo dell'Arte in Milan, with exhibitions staged every iii years, Triennale Milano has become a place in which art, compages, design, manufacturing and loftier craftsmanship tin can enter into an open and fruitful substitution and dialogue. he promotion of the applied arts, the decorative arts and the crafts – and their setting within the broader framework of the disciplines of pattern – is more fundamental than e'er today in order to confer the correct formal status on these fields of work and inquiry, and on their skilled practitioners. Fields which institute an extraordinary cultural heritage, distributed all over the country, and an accurate form of sustainability in product. he exhibition Mirabilia – the first in the series entitled "Mestieri d'Arte & Design. Crafts Culture" – reinforces the long-standing collaboration between Triennale Milano and the Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d'Arte, which has always been actively engaged, with extreme sensitivity, in the support and promotion of a loftier craftsmanship whose ethical vocation is to work on the maximum quality, on details, on the capacity to interpret the visions of designers in the best possible way. What is presented at the Triennale is an infrequent Wunderkammer, in which tradition and innovation are intertwined, only e'er in the name of the attention to experimentation, techniques, materials and regions that the Triennale and the Fondazione Cologni have in common. Peculiarly significant is the fact that the focus of this first exhibition is the city of Milan, where both our cultural organizations are located and operate. Thus Milan, from the fourth dimension of the Visconti to the present mean solar day, is confirmed in its role as a virtuous example of how to foster an come across between the artistic vision and what Richard Sennett calls the intelligence of the paw. If on the 1 paw this institutional collaboration represents another phase in the revival of the history and identity of the Triennale and its mission, on the other it is a powerful affirmation of the importance and relevance of high adroitness in the present day.  The expression of a work that is not tiredly anchored to the past, but looking towards the future.

Value, meaning, beauty
Franco Cologni
Chairman, Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d'Arte

When we decided to set up the Fondazione Cologni, in 1995, not everyone understood what was meant by 'mestieri d'arte'. Today the disciplinary field of high craftsmanship, of the decorative arts, of the applied arts seems to have taken on a new charter of life. Nonetheless information technology is nevertheless necessary to reverberate continually on its boundaries, on its strengths, on its contemporaneity. A permanent infinite at Triennale Milano is therefore a further and strong chemical element in the promotion of a marvellous but frail globe. A space that is besides a concentrate of energies, desires and projects, a place in which to reflect on origins, on territories, on the desire for beauty that finds a response in the infrequent work of women and men of talent, like the urban center's artisans: a reflection that has become a 18-carat cultural mission for united states today.  The forcefulness of pattern, a field in which Milan is seen as an international majuscule, has not always helped to brand the about of the office played by the crafts. And yet more and more creative people, more than and more designers and architects, feel today that dialogue with the know-how and skills of high adroitness allows them to express themselves amend and to produce new classics of contemporary beauty. A museum has always been a place of discovery and comparing. And with Mirabilia, our offset exhibition at the Quadreria of Triennale Milano in the serial "Mestieri d'Arte & Blueprint. Crafts Culture", emblematically dedicated to the skilled artisans of Milan, we wish to emphasize the value of a location that has always welcomed and supported the civilisation of excellence. Science, art, design, desire for wonder: Milan has the chapters to always demand the all-time from those who have something to propose, and who know how to turn dreams into concrete projects. We recollect this is a potent and of import message to ship to the younger generations: to exist competitive we demand to be competent, and seek out the "masters" who tin can teach the states to better ourselves, to rise higher up mediocrity and achieve excellence.

Experimentations and secrets
Susanna Zanuso
fine art historian, curator

Nothing is more evocative of the climate of feverish activeness in late 16th-century Milan than the castle 'of great wonder' constructed by the multifaceted artist Francesco Mandello and described past Paolo Morigi in the Nobiltà di Milano of 1595 at the beginning of the chapters devoted to the globe of the city's artistic industries: '[...] a castle of timber in which he made several quarters and each one [...] had its workshops with artisans of diverse kinds of craft inside them' who, driven by a hidden mechanism, 'worked at their craft [...] the cobblers sewed shoes, the armorers all beat out out their craft with hammers, the carpenters sawed [...] and all the other artisans did the same, each with his own arts and crafts, from street to street'. What Mandello had created was a sort of secular Birth scene that represented the teeming (and noisy) universe of artists and artisans, then the main pride and glory of the city. Out of the botteghe of glassworkers, armorers, turners, embroiderers, founders, damasceners, carvers of cameos and engravers of medals came objects made with rare perfection that owed their success to the fact of being unique and surprising: the discovery of new techniques of working, the so-called 'secrets' jealously guarded by Milanese workshops of which the sources speak, had allowed these artisan-inventors to create artefacts never seen earlier, objects sought after past all the courts of Europe. Jacopo da Trezzo invented machines for cutting diamonds; the clans of the Saracchi and Miseroni families had found a manner, in collaboration with goldsmiths, of joining pieces of rock crystal together to make unprecedented 'very large animals'; Ferrante Bellino had a formula for 'giving lustre to iron'; Ambrogio Maggiore was the 'inventor of the cloak-and-dagger of turning oval shapes' in ivory and ebony; Caterina Cantone's embroideries looked the same 'from the forepart and the back'; and the list of the Milanese inventions could keep. In the 'empire of things', as the Italian Renaissance has been described, Milan had been able to position itself at the centre of Europe where the product of precious and exclusive objects was concerned thanks to the integrated practice of artistic work and technical inquiry; a exercise out of which the creative procedure was built-in and nurtured with new materials and new methods. An undisputed international pre-eminence that was rooted in the profound ties, never really interrupted throughout the 16th century, that the urban center had maintained with the period of Leonardo's experimentalism.

The masterpieces

Antonini Milano

Grand Collier de Chien, Tebe collection
Pearls, diamonds and white gold, 1990
cm 4,5 x 33 x 0,v

This magnificent Antonini necklace is made up of 6 strings of 245 bizarre pearls of a grey colour. The 2 sinuous elements made of white gold and diamonds are characteristic of the 'Tebe' collection, which includes necklaces, bracelets, pendants, rings and earrings, all of them studded with diamonds. It was first presented in 1990 and expanded over the following ten years. As well as being characteristic of the collection, the parenthesis-shaped elements, forged in white gilt and then galvanized with white rhodium to brand the precious metallic look fifty-fifty shinier, accept been designed to serve the function of dividing and holding the half-dozen strings of pearls and 'supporting' the collier de chien or choker, embellished with 102 brilliant-cutting diamonds weighing around 1.45 carats. Antonini was founded in Milan in 1919 as a prestigious purveyor of diamonds and precious stones, quickly becoming a must have for sophisticated members of the Milanese and Italian aristocracy and recognized over time as a historic brand of fine jewellery. Its collections, of which Sergio Antonini is now the artistic director, are characterized by thorough inquiry and a passion for innovative design and are producing using sophisticated craft techniques of the highest quality. A brand that is known and nowadays all over the globe today, much loved by celebrities of the fashion and film globe and past connoisseurs of elegance everywhere.

world wide web.antonini.it

Giorgio Armani

Evening dress
Red bustier dress with crinoline flounces and embroidery in layered relief Fishnet veil with oversized red sequins Embroidery past Pine Grasso Ricami Alta Moda
Giorgio Armani Privé collection, Autumn/Wintertime 2014 – D'une boîte laquée, le rouge,
le blanc et le noir
Courtesy of Armani/Silos

This spectacular evening apparel represents in an exemplary manner the refined adroitness that goes into Giorgio Armani's creations of haute couture. The precious decorations are the product of the Milanese workshop of Pino Grasso Ricami Alta Moda (Pino Grasso Embroidery). A revolutionary genius, best-selling equally one of the greatest manner designers in the world, Giorgio Armani was born in Piacenza but has made his habitation in Milan, the urban center where he is known simply as 'King Giorgio'. Giorgio Armani has been and however is a fable, the jewel in the crown of Italian fashion. At the Armani/Silos infinite in Via Bergognone, the boggling story of over 40 years of piece of work is on brandish in a permanent exhibition that comprises 400 garments and 200 accessories, dating from 1980 to the present day; these are drawn from many Giorgio Armani collections and are selected on the basis of themes that accept inspired and continue to inspire the creative work of the designer. His timeless inventiveness, the image of modern, perfectly calibrated elegance, with fluid and precious lines, finds expression in haute couture. This stands out for its use of materials of the highest quality, excellence of execution and care taken over details, in creations that brandish a uniquely inventive daring and symbolise the sophisticated know-how of Italian artisanship, something which the master embroiderer Pino Grasso has oftentimes interpreted with flawless intuition.

www.armani.com

Bottega Ghianda

Rotating desk bookcase
Design Cini Boeri, 1989
Pear wood
cm 35 ten 35 x h 35

A celebrated piece for Bottega Ghianda, nevertheless in production, it represents the best of what can be achieved through a partnership between absolute excellence in Lombard cabinetmaking and the vision of a swell name in Italian design. A pupil of Ponti's, Cini Boeri has always placed the emphasis on functionality in her design, which is united with an impeccable aesthetic in the case of this cubic desk bookcase, rotating on a wooden disk, whose two bases are linked together by wooden rods with an oval section. Pierluigi Ghianda, the undisputed master of cabinetmaking who was dubbed 'the poet of wood', was the greatest exponent of the noble tradition of joinery in Brianza. His work was an unsurpassable expression of the combination of the highest craftsmanship with design and with absolute elegance and perfection of form. Bottega Ghianda has for decades been a betoken of reference for the near important architects and designers in Italia. Taken over by Promemoria thanks to the far-sighted sensibility and vision of Romeo Sozzi, information technology keeps religion today, under the direction of Michele De Lucchi, with the legacy of an unrivalled mastery.

www.bottegaghianda.com

Buccellati

Clotilde Tiara
Buccellati, 1920s
Tiara in silvery, xanthous golden and white aureate, 7 baroque pearls (31 carats), 51 rose-cut diamonds
(5 carats), 514 rose-cutting diamonds (7 carats)
Courtesy of Buccellati Holding Italy

In 1919 Mario Buccellati (1891-1965) founded the jewellery business firm and opened his first boutique shut to La Scala. The ladies of Milanese high social club used to turn upwards at the boutique six months ahead of the opening of the season at the opera house in club to become hold of 1 of his exclusive creations. A piece of jewellery much in vogue in this period was the tiara, a legacy of the elegance of by centuries, as formal, exclusive and highly symbolic decoration as the royal crown but adapted to more 'bourgeois' times. Mario Buccellati was very fond of this kind of jewellery and produced many fanciful interpretations of it, always making employ of rare and almost vanished traditional craft techniques that are now role of Buccellati's DNA. The transformation of fine materials, by means of prestigious and about unique techniques, into extraordinary pieces of jewellery is still the main focus of the Buccellati family today. And this is why the collections and the artisans are still scrupulously supervised by the business firm's creative director, Andrea Buccellati. Tradition and culture in the globe of jewellery to perpetuate a true centre of excellence, at present part of the Richemont Grouping and admired all over the world for its timeless beauty.

www.buccellati.com

Ambrogio Carati

The Vocal of the Whales
Fruit carousel/centrepiece
Design Pietro Russo
Masters Ernesto and Ambrogio Carati
Brass and bronze, lost-wax casting
and paw-modelling, 2016
cm h 33.8, 44.five Ø

The piece of work is the poetic fruit of a collaboration betwixt the craftsmen Ernesto and Ambrogio Carati and the designer Pietro Russo, for the Doppia Firma projection in 2016. Made out of brass, it is characterized by a dewdrop profile from the 19th-century tradition; figures of whales modelled past hand in clay were so cast in bronze by the lost-wax procedure, an backbreaking technique of classical origin in utilize today chiefly for jewellery; manual chasing and finishing of the work. An infrequent worker in bronze, Ambrogio Carati inherited the workshop (opened in 1894) from his father and grandfather. Today his sons Ernesto and Francesco as well work with him. The skill of the Carati family lies in the handcrafted reproduction, on the model of the past, of any kind of object, using all the techniques of metalworking. The experience accumulated in over a century of action makes it possible for them to combine a knowledge of the nigh traditional techniques for the working of brass and bronze with today's engineering science, something that is by now the prerogative of just a few highly skilled artisans.

www.caratibronzista.com

Carlo Chiesa

Copy of Guarneri del Gesù violin
European spruce and maple, ebony, 2019
cm 61 x 21 ten 11

The violin takes its inspiration from an instrument dating from 1740, the work of the celebrated Cremonese luthier Guarneri del Gesù, whose rare violins are today regarded as equal, if not superior, to those of Antonio Stradivari. All the violins made by the master luthier Chiesa are based on the works of great instrument makers of the past. In this case, the craftsman has called to reproduce even the signs of wear that time and use have left on the varnish of the original musical instrument: the colour has been artificially faded, the surface fabricated irregular, the patina reproduced. Trained at the Civica Scuola di Liuteria of Milan, Carlo Chiesa is one of the city'south finest craftsmen, every bit well as a cracking researcher and student of the history of string instruments and their most illustrious makers. In his workshop he produces modern and bizarre instruments, such as violins and violas da gamba, using various kinds of woods. The writer of numerous studies and bibliographies on luthiers of the past, Chiesa often gives lectures and master classes equally an expert on the ancient fine art of the luthier, collaborating with important conservators and collections. He too carries out an intense instruction activity and oftentimes takes youngsters wishing to improve their craft under his authoritative and passionate fly.

world wide web.strings.it

Caterina Crepax

Arges, the Princess'south River
Bodice made of paper, tissue-paper, silk paper,
Japanese handmade paper and vinyl glue
cm h 100 x 90 x 90
Private collection, Mila

'Arges', the river dress or 'river woman', is inspired by the legend of Prince Vlad of Wallachia, Bram Stoker's Dracula, whose wife had thrown herself from the tower of the castle into the river below out of grief, having been falsely informed of her husband's expiry in battle. The dress is covered in its entirety with a sinuous flow of white and blue threads rolled by hand out of paper, which widen out into an estuary skirt, forming phrases. The Gothic inspiration is contrasted past the use of stake, fresh colours that allude to h2o, calorie-free and life. The fantastic world of Caterina Crepax, daughter of the famous illustrator and a well-known Milanese paper artist, ranges from magnificent items of clothing and accessories to objects of design, tapestries and sculptures. All made out of paper thanks to her refined manual skills, guided by a highly original and poetic imagination. Her works are paper dreams, fragile hollow sculptures, moulded, carved and decorated with finely worked applications and inserts, sometimes illuminated from within to create evocative scenic effects.

www.catcrepaxpaperart.com

Argentaria Dabbene

Linea Cabochon Spherical Vases
925 silver and assorted semiprecious stones
cm Ø 26 x h 24
cm Ø xx x h 19

The Linea Cabochon collection, inspired by natural materials and semiprecious stones, has acquired iconic condition for its successful combination of know-how and design. It was begun in 1950 past Marco Dabbene, founder in 1939 of the Argenteria Dabbene, one of Milan's about historical addresses. A master chaser, he handed downwards to his sons, Roberto and Armando, and grandchildren, Cristiana, Marco and Armando Jr, the passion for his arts and crafts. Today the workshop, in the heart of Brera, blends the tradition of the time-honoured craft activities of Milan with innovation, creating pieces that are made past hand and beautifully engraved: frames, trays, candlesticks, lucky charms in gold and silver, special pans for the refined gourmet. On display in the Galleria dell'Antiquariato are objects past Venini, Baccarat, Lalique, Carlo Moretti, Richard Ginori, Puiforcat and Lladró, enriching the all-encompassing collection of the Argenteria Dabbene, which also specializes in wedding gift lists and sports trophies. In addition the Argenteria offers customers a repair and restoration service for objects made of gold and silver. The pieces exhibited in the gallery, comprising antiquarian silverware from Italy, France, England and other countries dating from between the 17th and 19th century, have been chosen with care and expertise and have been presented at the nigh prestigious antique fairs.

www.argenteriadabbene.com

De Vecchi Milano 1935

Large Diana vase
Design Gabriele De Vecchi, 1978
Argent-plated
cm h 25 x 29 x 29
Vaso Phoemina grande
Argent-plated
cm h 25 x 29 x 29

A celebrated De Vecchi creation, an boggling case of sinuous, soft and three-dimensional forms that evoke complementary male and female profiles. The stylized silhouettes of the faces of a woman and a man powerfully conjure up the image of a kiss in the wind. Intense poetry and great technical skill are fused in this highly contemporary piece of work. De Vecchi has been i of the most of import silversmith's workshops in the metropolis since 1935. Founded in that year by Piero De Vecchi, it has produced iconic pieces that are on display in museums like the 5&A in London, the MoMA in New York and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. For years it has been introducing innovations into the tradition of silversmithing, through the creation of its own language of design. Information technology has reaped a serial of marks of recognition and awards over its seventy years of action. In 2010 De Vecchi was acquired past the prestigious firm of jewellers Vhernier, which shares the same dearest of design and high craftsmanship.

www.devecchi.com

Guido De Zan

Figure Vases
Stoneware built past manus from slabs of clay,
glaze, ceramic pastels
cm h 37 x 27 x 6.v

These vases, which are given a two-dimensional advent by their elliptical base of operations and which are decorated almost as if they were sheets of paper, are a meaningful example of the product of the Milanese ceramist, poised between pattern culture and high craftsmanship. In his workshop 'Il Coccio' De Zan has been producing art objects, vases, bowls and modest sculptures since 1978, using stoneware and porcelain. The sources of inspiration for his work are the traditions of Nihon and Northern Europe and gimmicky design. In the early on years he focused on making useful objects out of majolica. So, utilizing the raku technique, he moved towards more symbolic objects like cups for the tea ceremony, vases and decorative panels. Since the 1990s, he has combined the production of ceramics with research into graphics, using a variety of techniques and materials. Over the terminal twenty-five years, utilizing stoneware and porcelain, he has devoted himself about exclusively to making vases and sculptures, pursuing with great rigour and purity of grade 'an idea of lightness', in other words the desire to 'lighten' the material and seek an equilibrium, in the elegance of essentiality.

www.guidodezan.information technology

Dolce&Gabbana

Ferdinandea, expect xx, Dolce&Gabbana Alta Moda Agrigento Collection,
Autumn / Winter 2019/2020
100% silk organza, 100% silk tulle, whalebones
Embroidery by Pine Grasso Ricami Alta Moda with crystals, chaplet,
clear glass gems, coral, 22% coral paste

This organza corset dress, embroidered with corals, crystals and iridescent pearls, was presented at the Dolce&Gabbana Alta Moda show in Agrigento in July 2019. The magnificent embroidery is the work of the Atelier Pino Grasso Ricami Alta Moda, a Milanese atelier of excellence. The dress with its pure, elegant and essential lines is inspired by the goddesses of Greek mythology, in this case linked to the sea and to branches of coral from Sciacca. The collections of Alta Moda, Alta Sartoria and Alta Gioielleria of Dolce&Gabbana, flagship of Italian excellence in the earth, are a triumph of skilled craftsmanship, of that 'made by hand' linked to its original vocation which has been at the Maison'due south middle since the outset. For 35 years, and to an fifty-fifty greater extent today, the boggling manual ability of the Italian tradition has been at the centre of the message delivered by the two designers to the new generations, urging them to have the courage to take the thrilling and fascinating road of the crafts, enamoured of tradition merely projected into the time to come.

www.dolcegabbana.com

Fantini Mosaici

Horse'southward Caput
Matteo and Benvenuto Fantini, later a design by Achille Funi, 1933
Mosaic in tesserae of fine marble
cm 46 x 86

The work is the sample originally presented for the mosaic set in the flooring of the vestibule of the Palazzo of Triennale Milano, Achille Funi's "Cavalcade of the Amazons", part of a decorative bicycle on a classical theme produced for the exhibition in 1933 by the Ferrarese creative person, initiator and noted exponent in Milan of the Novecento creative motility. Painter, sculptor, architect, illustrator, set designer and graphic designer, Funi in the 1930s theorized and practiced a return to landscape painting. The design for the big floor ornamentation was made by Funi for Leonor Fini, an artist to whom he was sentimentally attached, which she then interpreted and turned into a mosaic that was executed by the Milanese Fantini workshop. Information technology was Domenico Fantini, a craftsman from Friuli skilled in the art of mosaic, who opened the family'due south kickoff workshop in Milan in 1900. Today the fourth generation is fabricated upwards of Marco, Enrico and Andrea, who work with time-honoured techniques to create decorations that range in their subjects from the figurative to the abstract and that use tesserae of marble and stone or pieces of enamel or glass, every bit well equally Genoese terrazzo and Venetian pebblestone. In Milan they have been responsible, among other things, for the restoration of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele and some of the floors in Palazzo Reale and the Biblioteca Ambrosiana. A loftier level of craftsmanship that today has to operate at a global level and is able to do so.

www.fantinimosaici.it

Fondazione Gianmaria Buccellati

Crater of the Muses
Cup fabricated of yellowish gold, silver, oval shine jade (430.25 grams) and 2,027 cabochon-cut sapphires (329.61 carats) , 1981
cm h 10.fifty, bowl cm 21 x 14, base cm xv ten xi
Collection of the Gianmaria Buccellati Foudation

Gianmaria Buccellati (1929-2015) conceived and commissioned this magnificent and precious "objet d'art" worth of a Renaissance cabinet, completed in 1981. The Cup belongs to the Collection of "Precious Objects" that he began to create shortly after having admired the Medici's collection of vases, made of gemstones, that are on permanent show at the Museo degli Argenti in Florence. Fascinated by these wonderful items, Gianmaria began to make very special "purely decorative" creations, his aim being to ensure that those aboriginal crafting techniques would not get lost: gems and precious metals sumptuously handcrafted have been combined with his research for well balanced forms, compositions and colors, inspired from either the archetype, baroque or the rococo styles. "And so the full volume of the large jade cup holds a dialogue with the theme of the opposing curves of the polylobate pes, beautified with thousands of cabochon-cut sapphires set in silver. Adulterate in its dynamism, the same theme is proposed in the setting of the cup's lip, for which Gianmaria took inspiration from the rusticated ashlars of the Florentine Palazzo Strozzi, rounding and softening into plastic volumes… Within the gold border of the lip, are finely engraved the names of the nine Muses, the young and cute daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne ("Retentiveness"), patronesses of the Arts" (Paola Venturelli).

www.gmbfoundation.com

Fornasetti

Table Facciata quattrocentesca
Wood and silk-screened metal,
lacquered by mitt, 2020 Design Barnaba Fornasetti
cm 40 x lxxx x 80

The theme of compages is a recurrent presence in Fornasetti's work. Here the subtle geometry of Renaissance rusticated buildings is enhanced both by the combination of colours that gives it a contemporary wait and by lacquering. The geometric rigour of the coloured patterns is jump together in masterly fashion by unusual accents: a poetic synthesis between the history of architecture, skilled craftsmanship and creativity. Founded in Milan in the 1950s as a workshop of design and decorative arts, Fornasetti is renowned today for its unmistakable visual language. In addition to the artistic procedure, the approach to production is a main trait of the company. All of its creations, in fact, from article of furniture to accessories to china, are made strictly past hand, constantly following a tradition that makes each production a genuine one-off piece. Fornasetti creations, poised betwixt design and high adroitness, are truthful 'conversation pieces': they draw on our commonage imagination, apply timeless aesthetics and convey cultural messages.

www.fornasetti.com

Ganci Argenterie

Spadaliscio, Spadafiori
Vases in 925 silverish
Pattern Giovanni Morandino, 1985
cm h 65 ten 32.five x 32.5

The pair of vases is the fruit of hundreds of hours of piece of work and the skillful hands of several artisans, 'for the silversmith cannot exist a soloist'. To brand works like these multiple skills are needed, in order to carry out techniques like lamination, turning, welding, hammering, embossing, chasing, lapping, buffing, galvanizing, finishing, burnishing and polishing. Giovanni Morandino, struck past the smooth and polished forms of the creations of the master glassblowers of Murano, set out hither to produce a silver vase with a mirror surface, without flaws or whatever signs of working. Equally often happens, the client fell in dearest with the form and asked for it to exist reproduced in a chased version with a floral ornament. Founded in 1926, the Argenteria Ganci is one of the oldest workshops in Milan, and was taken over by Giuseppe Morandino in 1960. Today his grandchildren Giovanna, Giuseppe, Giorgio and Gianluca keep the family unit know-how alive with passion, and have a reputation for the extremely refined manufacture of wrought-silverish pieces.

www.ganciargenterie.com

Gipsoteca Fumagalli e Dossi

Plaster casts of historic works
Bosom of the Duchess of Urbino, Desiderio da Settignano, 1500, Staatliche Museen, Berlin
cm h 50 x 45 x 25
Bust of Beatrice of Aragon, Francesco Laurana, 1475, Staatliche Museen, Berlin,
cm h 50 10 46 x 26
Bust of the Duchess of Burgundy,
h 50 x 36 x 25 cm
Female person bust after a wax model of 1500 attributed to Leonardo, Musée Lille, Fontainebleau,
cm h 49 x 31 x 21
Bust of Costanza Bonarelli, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1635, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence,
cm h 50 x 35 10 26
Horse for chariot, Abbondio Sangiorgio, 1825-31, model for the Arco della Stride in Milan,
cm h 63 x 55.5 x 21

In 1974 Fumagalli and Dossi took over the historic Milanese workshop with an attached gallery of plaster casts run past the plaster moulders Gariboldi and Bertolazzi. The workshop on Viale Montello lasted right through the century, passing from its two founders to their respective sons Cesare Gariboldi and Cesare Bertolazzi and and then to their pupils, Agostino Fumagalli and Mario Dossi. The two craftsmen were later joined past Roberto Fumagalli, who came to work aslope his begetter and uncle afterwards obtaining a diploma in sculpting from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera. The Gipsoteca houses an important drove of models and moulds, and is today probably the primary supplier of plaster casts to art schools all over Italia. In the extensive catalogue, copies of works of Greek, Egyptian and Roman art and from the Renaissance and bizarre eras, masks, capitals and figures, animals, decorative friezes and anatomical models. The moulds used to reproduce the plaster copies are made with the aid of innovative and technologically advanced materials.

world wide web.fumagallidossi.com

Alessandro Trametta / La Fucina di Efesto

An-Bar
Hot-worked stainless steel, gloss stop
cm h 15 10 Ø 42
The light of Venus
Copper and bronze, embossing, gloss terminate, patination
cm h 15 x Ø 42
Talos
Bronze, concentric casts, gloss finish
cm h15 x Ø 42
Orichalcum
Hot-worked brass, gloss terminate
cm h 15 x Ø 42

4 unique works, four points of view on metal, serve to amplify and deepen Alessandro Rametta's vision of the relationship betwixt humanity, fabric and technique: a circuitous dialectic within the domain of art and philosophy that the master craftsman has been investigating for over 20 years out of a want to uncover the ancient intuition that lies at the root of this extraordinary relationship. Rametta has hot-forged 4 sculptural objects from steel, copper, bronze and brass, experimenting with iv completely new techniques and exploring and liberating the expressive potential of metals in a perfect residuum between reinterpretation of the past and a gimmicky approach. In 1997 he founded La Fucina di Efesto, a place of research on the deadline between art, design and architecture, where today extraordinary works are created out of metallic in a combination of ancient craft skills, technique and experimental design. A hothouse of artistic experimentation, whose works in metal, ofttimes of big size, are situated somewhere between sculpture, blueprint and the one-off piece of high adroitness.

www.lafucinadiefesto.com

Laboratorio Paravicini

Lisbon Naif
Plates fabricated of thin white earthenware finished on the wheel, hand-decorated in blue under glaze and high fired
cm Ø 26

This series of four ceramic plates decorated by hand by the talented craftswomen of the Laboratorio Paravicini takes its inspiration from Portuguese decorations of the 17th century and the Chinese ones of the Ming dynasty, with their refined coupling of white and blue. The picturesque workshop in the heart of Milan'south Cinque Vie commune specializes in the decoration of dinner services, cups, trays and candlesticks, with a vast range of subjects and styles. Founded at the beginning of the 1990s, the Laboratorio stemmed from an thought equally simple equally it was aggressive on the part of Costanza Paravicini, who works there today with her daughters Benedetta and Margherita: that of creating dishes and dinner services like those of the past, made by hand only for everyday apply. The technique of ornament is that of loftier-fired glazing on white earthenware: the underglaze decorations are luminous, indelible and non-toxic and range from the ornamental motifs of antique Chinese porcelain to reproductions of villas and gardens, portraits of dogs, wild animals, flowers and fruit, monograms and coats of arms. One-off pieces created out of very personal dreams, thoughts and needs.

www.paravicini.information technology

Legatoria Conti Borbone

Livres d'or
3 'guest books' with full calfskin binding, aureate ornaments and decorations of semiprecious stones
cm 42 x 30

Not but newspaper, just noble materials and time-honoured craft techniques are needed for the creation of these 'invitee books' with quality bindings characterized by classical stylistic references and precious decorations, to be used for writing down comments, opinions and dedications on the occasion of important events. A truthful album of the high craftsmanship of a celebrated Milanese workshop: full-grained vegetable-tanned and pad-dyed calfskin, laid paper, embossed decorations and ornaments in gold, garnet, amber and female parent of pearl ready in silvery and manus-made marble newspaper. The Legatoria Conti Borbone, the oldest in Milan, has specialized for over 140 years in the restoration and binding of books, in bindings in leather of various tones, in the hot decoration of covers, including in fine gold, and in coverings of marble paper, cloth and silk. Every procedure is carried out by manus and with great technical expertise, in accord with the rules of the bookbinder'south art, and here the aboriginal press nonetheless has pride of place amidst the work tables. The Istituto Treccani has been advising its clients to have their volumes bound at this historic workshop since the thirties. Opened by the swell gramps of the current owners, information technology is run today by his great grandchildren Angelo, Gabriele and Gianluca Marchesi, who are carrying on the family tradition of craftsmanship with great skill.

world wide web.contiborbone.it

Lorenzi Milano

Chess Set
Zebu and buffalo horn, ebony frame
and contumely edging
cm h 2.5 10 35.2 x 35.2

For those who appreciate the value of taking things slowly and the beauty of essentiality, the Lorenzi Milano chess set, handmade from natural materials, is completed by a leather instance moulded on the inside to fit the size and shape of each piece, so that they can be put away tidily at the end of the game. The name Lorenzi is a legendary i, synonymous with loftier craftsmanship. A story that began when Giovanni Lorenzi moved to Milan from the valleys of his native Trentino and decided to open a workshop on Via Montenapoleone in 1929. This marked the birth of Yard. Lorenzi, a minor firm specializing in the sale of cutlery and the sharpening of knives. Today the tradition is maintained by Mauro Lorenzi, who with his daughters Linda and Serena has written a new folio in the family history by opening the new Lorenzi Milano workshop in Piazza Filippo Meda, a rock's throw from the old workshop on Via Montenapoleone. The piece of work is done in a contemporary setting where skilled artisans use horn, bamboo, wood, mother of pearl, metal and leather to brand first-class and useful objects.

www.lorenzimilano.com

Mauro Mori

Scudo White, Scudo Black, Scudo Red
Galacatta marble, Belgian Black marble,
Rosso marble
cm h 45 10 28 x 16

3 human torsos or stylized suits of armour, three exercises of mastery in the use of a nobile and taxing cloth like marble, presented here in three different, splendid varieties. Since 1994 Mauro Mori, built-in in Cremona, has been creating sculptures in his studio in Milan out of precious natural materials like marble, wood, statuary and silver, worked entirely past hand. Solid blocks of material, often dressed in their places of origin, are the matrices of his unique and archetypal forms. The craftsmanship is deliberate and axiomatic and constitutes the guiding thread that runs through all of his work as an artist and reveals the desired form through a procedure of subtraction. A bang-up traveller, in love with other cultures, and a curious and enthusiastic experimenter with materials and techniques, he brings a potent ethical and emotional component to his work as an artisan-creative person. In January 2014 he founded 'Manus', a non-profit association that helps people, artists and artisans, in situations of physical, economic or other kinds of stress.

world wide web.mauromori.information technology

Gianluca Pacchioni

Metaphysical Cube
Cabinet in onyx, brass,
degree bronze
cm h 160 x 60 x 60

An enigmatic monolith of white onyx veined with brass. The slabs were showtime cleaved up then joined together once again, the cracks meticulously filled with the liquid golden metallic. Mounted on iv tall and slender legs, the splintered cake almost seems to float, freed from the force of gravity. A monolith that wavers between tradition and science-fiction: a sacred space, a place of spirituality in which y'all tin – as the artist-artisan himself suggests – keep your thoughts. A Pandora's box that does not contain all of humanity's ills, only just, in perfect secrecy, the thoughts of its owner. It is presented every bit an allegory of the human encephalon: obscure, fractured and total of inspirations – immaterial substances – that are its key. Kintsugi is the art of repairing cleaved pottery with lacquer mixed with powdered gold. This traditional technique is closely connected with the Japanese philosophy of Wabi-sabi, which celebrates imperfection and transience. At his Milanese forge Gianluca Pacchioni, designer, sculptor and "homo faber", works metals with an center to lightness, making constant reference to the preciousness of the scars left in the textile.

www.gianluca - pacchioni.com

Daniele Papuli

Doubleblù
Vase made of strips of carte du jour, cotton gauze,
a paper-thin cylinder and vinyl gum
cm h 48 10 Ø thirty

The lamellar construction composed of flexible strips of card selected for their color and weight, the shifting profiles of the strips and the compactness of the fabric, a leitmotif of its creator's personal stylistic research in the field of sculpture and self-produced blueprint, shape the volumes and curves of this work. Sculptor, designer and self-producer, Daniele Papuli has chosen paper equally the material of his artistic language. The products of his enquiry discover their way into art galleries and interact with famous newspaper mills, publishers, architects, fashion designers and interior decorators. His experimentation with new materials, like to paper and utilized for their structural and tactile potentialities, leads him to make continual interconnections, from sculpture to product pattern, from the installation to set pattern. Nether the trademark Uff design by Papuli he creates paper objects of small size: 'an inventory of things that have nil to do with the practicality of what we are accepted to call design, but instead explore the possibility of presenting and offering a playful and surprising imaginary reality'.

www.danielepapuli.net

Pomellato

Iconica Collection of Modular Bracelets
Bracelets in 18-carat rose gold and brown diamonds
cm 48.v

'Iconica' is a tribute to Pomellato's tradition of jewellery. A timeless collection, information technology embodies the tactile and sensual experience that defines the brand. It reflects the contrast between Milanese sobriety and the expressive exuberance of Pomellato, whose new 'Iconica' bracelets in rose gold pay homage to the company's rich history of the production of bondage, a distinctive marking of its heritage. The oval links, carefully crafted to emphasize their volume, cover one another in an irregular rhythm that culminates in an invisible squeeze, the piece of work of the Maison's Milanese artisans, that allows the bracelets to be joined together in an unbroken sequence to form necklaces of diverse lengths. Synonymous with extraordinary creativity and colour, Pomellato was founded in Milan in 1967 thanks to the intuition of the heir of a family of goldsmiths, Pino Rabolini. A pioneer of the philosophy of prêt-à-porter in the world of jewellery, Rabolini immediately gave the brand a strong identity that was in line with tendencies in manner, allowing it to abound and attract international attention. Expressing its original and innovative spirit through refined combinations of coloured stones, special cuts and creative ensembles of impeccable craftsmanship, the Maison has come to exist the symbol of a modern and unconventional dazzler with an iconic style. In July 2013 Pomellato became part of the Kering group.

www.pomellato.com

Romeo Miracoli

Nero Africano
Buffalo and Antelope, 925 argent sculpture, wax casting, and chisel, 1980.

From the "Wildlife" collection of sculptures dedicated to Africa. The animalier theme is particularly honey to the fourth dimension-honoured atelier of Romeo Miracoli, who declines information technology in dissimilar figures with great skill, to the delight of enthusiasts and collectors.

www.romeomiracoli.com

Lorenzo Rossi

Violin
Maple, spruce, ebony, fossil amber-based varnish.

The instrument is inspired by the traditional Italian schoolhouse of the 18th century, revised in a mod key, with stylistic personalisations by the author, who is considered one of the best masters in the sector also for his secret recipe of varnish, with oil, amber and pigments, to requite a special patina to the surfaces. The instrument will be among the finalists of the European violin competition "Vittorio Veneto", 2021 edition.

www.rossiviolins.com

Gabriella Sacchi

Tabernacle
Sculpture hand-moulded in stoneware,
slip, glaze, leather and fe
cm h 43 x 23 x 23

The piece of work is a contemporary version of the tabernacle, and presents all the techniques for which Gabriella Sacchi is historic. The structure, on a triangular program, stands on cone-shaped supports and has a elevation formed past iii triangles. The presence of the repeated triangular grade calls to mind the idea of the Trinity. The interior of the tabernacle is glazed while the rough exterior is covered with writing: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by him. In him was life." Gabriella Sacchi is an architect and ceramist of dandy talent, who in 1981 opened a workshop-gallery in Milan, Spazio Nibe, devoted to gimmicky ceramics, constantly developing new techniques and new forms betwixt art, craftsmanship and the culture of design. The speciality of this creative person, whose piece of work has won many awards, is the slab technique, in which the dirt is moulded by hand before being decorated and fired. The workshop favours the creation of ane-off pieces and pocket-sized runs, supervising the process from design to end product equally well as carrying out an intense teaching activity.

www.spazionibe.information technology

San Lorenzo / Lella e Massimo Vignelli, con Ciro Cacchione

Endless
925 silver, cabochon-cut black onyx
cm Ø 1; two circles cm 12; length when fully extended cm 84
The endless necklace is in the permanent drove of the Civiche Raccolte d'Arte Applicata – Castello Sforzesco – Milan.

A necklace produced by the Studio San Lorenzo in Milan to a design by Lella and Massimo Vignelli in collaboration with the craftsman Ciro Cacchione, made using highly sophisticated technical solutions developed to meet the specific needs of design. In every civilization since antiquity the spiral has been a recurrent ornamental motif. And information technology was by taking a screw as their starting point that Lella and Massimo Vignelli have designed and made, employing sophisticated technical solutions, an innovative necklace that breaks with traditional schemes and can be wound up, unwound and stretched out completely on a flat surface, taking on the most varied shapes and changing to suit the fancy of its wearer. In 1970 Ciro Cacchione founded San Lorenzo in Milan with the aim of renewing the expressive language of the silversmith in accord with the principles of contemporary design. The workshop is known for its collaborations with architects and designers of international repute. The excellence of its production has been recognized by some of near important institutions in Italy and abroad, from Triennale Milano to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, which in 1995 devoted a monographic exhibition to San Lorenzo. Many of the objects it has produced are now in the permanent collections of museums in Europe and America, similar the Metropolitan and MoMA in New York.

www.sanlorenzoargento.it

Serapian

Secret
Bag in black-and-white nappa leather, crafted with the Mosaico process
cm h 42 x 32 x 22

The "Secret" purse is made entirely by hand using the 'Mosaico' process, a Serapian exclusive since 1947. Strips of soft nappa leather are delicately hand-woven by skilled artisans to create a graphic motif that is an emblem of the Maison's virtuosity and of the Italian tradition of leatherworking. Here nosotros see the 'chiaroscuro' version of the Maison's iconic weave, fabricated even more precious by the play of shades of black and white. Only as in the past, this pocketbook is signed by the craftsman who made it on a label on the inside: a personal bear upon that makes it a truly unique creation. Stefano Serapian, born in Armenia, came to Italia in the early on 1920s, settling first in Venice and and so in Milan. In 1928 he started to create his first leather goods. In the 1950s and '60s his bags rapidly attracted the attention of the international public and film stars with their engaging tones and fine materials. In the 1970s the seed sown by Stefano Serapian connected to flourish subsequently his decease in 1972 thank you to his son Ardavast, who took the helm and steered the company into the futurity. What has always distinguished the Maison is its continual research into new materials and the deeply Milanese grapheme of its mode: an extraordinary example of high adroitness embracing the contemporary. Today Serapian has go function of the Richemont Group.

www.serapian.com

Silverish Tre / Carlo Traviganti

Airplane Tea Pot, Train Tea Pot
Teapots made out of brass, using the techniques of hand-turning, welding and precision casting
of fabric that is then sandblasted and coated with a thick layer of argent.
cm h 17 x 35 x 30
cm h 30 x 15 x thirty

The two works are particularly representative of the philosophy of this Milanese workshop: the reinterpretation of objects of everyday utilise with great imagination and artistic liberty, turning them with inventiveness and great expertise into highly original and special items. Riccardo Traviganti is an eclectic craftsman who inherited the metal-spinning workshop from his father Carlo and makes extraordinary objects out of argent, brass, copper and steel. These include amazing two-metre-loftier Fabergé eggs and a life-size carriage drawn by a mechanical horse. Today the business organization is run by his children Carlo, Mara and Lorena, who together with a team of artisans produce a wide range of creations, including decorative objects for the home in silver, German silver and brass. The workshop in Via Tortona collaborates with well-known architects and designers and often works for the theatre: it has made stage sets for the Teatro alla Scala in Milan and an all-encompassing range of metal props, especially for costume dramas. It also makes vessels and ornaments for religious services and is renowned for its astonishing teapots, one-off pieces of the highest quality in fanciful and original shapes.

www.traviganti.it

Lilla Tabasso

Sod (wildflowers)
Lampworked Murano glass, gesso, paint, glass powder, drinking glass filaments
cm h 55 x lxx x 50
Courtesy Caterina Tognon vetro contemporaneo Venezia

Inspired by the pieces of turf painted by Albrecht Dürer, the work pays poetic tribute to the swell amount of life to be found in a modest clod of earth, rendered with incredible skill and a naturalist's sensibility. In fact Lilla Tabasso, a biologist by training and at present a designer and artisan, became fascinated by Murano glass as a cloth after finishing her scientific studies and started to learn the ancient techniques of bravado and lampworking. The artisan'due south enquiry is focused on botany, the centre of her interest and study, combined with the complex exercise of working glass by hand. Her works are floral compositions of phenomenal realism that have from nature their endless palette of forms, colours and reflections, likewise – and this is fundamental for the creative person – as mutations and flaws. Capturing the dazzler of nature, in its mix of perfection and imperfection is the idea behind the artist's botanic masterpieces in drinking glass, especially in her poetic representation of cut or faded flowers and the teeming of the tiny insects hidden amongst the petals, almost with the realistic precision of a Flemish painting.

www.caterinatognon.com

Vhernier

Calla
Calla necklace, 18k white gilt, diamonds (311, fourteen.15 carats) and ebony, aluminium and black nanoceramics.

The necklace is an icon of the Maison. The aluminium and nanoceramic elements are busy with a excellent spiral of diamonds. Voluptuous and feminine, composed by a succession of identical elements, it is a contemporary and timeless jewel, with an anarchistic charm.

www.vhernier.com

Giordano Viganò e Giacomo Moor

Joiner's Toolbox
Design Giacomo Moor
Master artisan Giordano Viganò
Canaletto walnut and olive, brass and leather, 2016
cm h 47 x 35 x 12

The work is the fruit of a creative run into between Giacomo Moor and the smashing cabinetmaker from Brianza Giordano Viganò, for the project Doppia Firma in 2016. A refined interpretation of the joiner's toolbox, containing half dozen tools: bevel guess, marker gauge, pencil, mallet, chisel and smoothing plane. The outer corners of the box have minor inlays of bone, while the false bottom contains compartments for screws. A symbol of the partnership between pattern and craftsmanship, the work won the Wallpaper Design Award in 2017. A designer and joiner, Giacomo Moor is a homo of many talents capable of overseeing the production process from beginning to stop. His Milanese carpentry is an articulated and multidisciplinary workshop, a place of exchange and growth, where Moor and his squad of designers and carpenters share skills, invest in inquiry and blend innovation with traditional methods, e'er pursuing artisan quality. Giordano Viganò, acknowledged as ane of the best master cabinetmakers in the Brianza surface area for his extraordinary competence and skilled know-how, for more than fifty years has been dedicating himself with passion and creativity to the creation of exquisite pieces of furniture, accessories and objects, e'er imaging innovative and modern solutions.

www.giordanovigano.information technology - www.giacomomoor.com

Gioielleria Villa / Giuseppe Villa

Gage links
Xanthous gilded, coral, sapphire, lapis lazuli, onyx and jade

A fantastic range of fanciful and extremely refined cuff links made of yellow gold and hand-carved coloured stones, a truthful must of the historic Gioielleria Villa, which boasts swarms of enthusiasts and collectors. The Gioielleria Villa was founded in Milan in 1876 by Benvenuto Villa, goldsmith, sculptor and alchemist. It has been located in Via Manzoni since 1930. From that time on Villa has never ceased to fascinate the Milanese and others with its elegant and precious, multi-honor-winning creations, sought afterwards and worn by a refined international clientele of connoisseurs. Like its mesomorphic rings or its endless series of much-loved cuff links in enamel, bone, semiprecious stones and pearls and its micromosaic brooches and rings, fabricated using sophisticated techniques. The legendary 'tessuto Villa' is an unrivalled mesh of gold wire patented by the grandfather of the current proprietors, which moulds itself to the body like a piece of soft velvet. Today, Alice and Francesca are the fifth, talented generation to run the house, together with their predecessor Filippo.

www.villa.information technology

Vimas

Pouf Lulù
Design Anna Costella
Marine ply, poplar, beech, 2020
cm h 50 x 42 ten 43

The pouf is a ane-off piece, made specifically for Mirabilia and designed to convey an idea of solidity and stability, combined with lightness and airiness. Information technology was designed in collaboration with the architect Anna Costella. Mod materials, painstaking craftsmanship, tradition and innovation are happily combined in this creation, a tribute paid past the master upholsterer Virzi to his dear deceased partner. Vimas, the craft house created in 1981 by Pietro Virzi and specializing in the production of upholstery and drape, works with the near important studios of architecture in Milan and oversees the furnishing of Christian Dior boutiques in Italian republic. Pietro Virzi, born in Sicily, has been living and working in Milan since 1962. He received his training at the ATISEA vocational school and collaborates with several celebrated Milanese upholstery workshops. He has long been the president of CITA, the Association of Italian Upholsterers, promoting many initiatives in back up of the sector. The firm is distinguished past the use of high-quality, precious and innovative products and materials, chosen to lend value to the skilled work of its artisans. In 2019 1 of its most significant works was at the major international exhibition Human being Faber, in Venice, where information technology created a special scenic display designed past Bharat Mahdavi.

world wide web.vimas-arredo.it

Biblioteca Trivulziana

Franciscus Columna, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili
Venice, Aldus Manutius, December 1499
Newspaper re-create with binding of stiff parchment
mm 310 × 224
Courtesy of the Biblioteca Trivulziana, Milan

Undisputed masterpiece of allegorical literature and Renaissance publishing, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, literally 'Poliphilus' Strife of Love in a Dream', attributed to Francesco Colonna (according to some a Dominican friar of Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice, but for others the Roman prince, lord of Palestrina from 1484 and peradventure a frater of Pomponius Laetus'southward academy), was printed in Venice by Aldus Manutius the Elder, the great publisher and humanist, in the December of 1499. The transformative power of Platonic beloved is narrated in a poetic and metaphorical form: betwixt refined symbolisms and cultured poetic references, the writer unravels the adventures of Poliphilus in a forest and then in a wonderful building, until he can contemplate the most beautiful of nymphs, Polia, whose honey he wins. Considered the gem in the crown of Italian printing, one of the masterpieces of typography of all time and the about beautiful illustrated book in the world, it is enriched with 172 fantabulous woodcuts, many of them inspired by the idea of the Renaissance garden. In this book can be found, for the showtime fourth dimension in literature, a description of an object carved out of rock crystal in the style of the Milanese chief craftsmen, the lamp of the temple of Venus.

world wide web.trivulziana.milanocastello.it

Castello Sforzesco

Chiffonier
Milanese workshop, second half of 16th century
A small chiffonier with drawers and a folding acme, made of wood veneered with ebony and with ivory inlays, applications of ormolu and fe plates damascened in gilded and silverish
cm h twoscore x 43.5 10 27.five
Courtesy of the Castello Sforzesco, municipality of Milan

The small cabinet is a significant example of the high-quality Lombard joinery of the Renaissance, evidence of the dandy level of expertise attained past Milanese workshops. From the Renaissance onward the pattern and industry of furniture became a skilled craft through the use of rare techniques, including marquetry and etching. The furniture made in the Lombard workshops of the menstruum is ofttimes decorated with mosaics, sculptures or actual drawings, and the principal cabinetmakers also used materials like brass or ivory, and sophisticated techniques for the working of metals. In this case, in particular, the craftsmen have applied i of the techniques for which Milan was famous all over Europe: 'damascening', or the art of Persian origin of inlaying different metals into one another for ornamental purposes. Commonly used for weapons, it has been employed here to decorate the within of the cabinet. The contents of the Collections of Applied Art of the Castello Sforzesco are extremely varied in type and cover a period from the Center Ages to the 20th century. Furniture, tapestries, textiles, ceramics, glassware, goldwork, sculptures in wood and ivory, artistic objects in bronze and iron, artillery, leatherwork and scientific instruments brand up a corpus that is one of the most important in the globe for its size and quality. Of smashing involvement are the section devoted to furnishing from the Sforza menstruum, the drove of Renaissance cabinets, including the exceptional Stipo Passalacqua, and the magnificent group of objects fabricated by Giuseppe Maggiolini: menu tables, bedside tables, a medicine chest, a desk and above all three excellent chests of drawers that document the evolution of this piece of furniture from the rococo style to the neoclassical.

www.milanocastello.it

Museo Bagatti Valsecchi

Close helmet, Milan, circa 1570
Bronzed, engraved and aureate steel
cm h 33.5 x 27 ten 34
Courtesy of the Museo Bagatti Valsecchi

Restored by Bruna Mariani, 2019

The helmet, on display in the 19th-century Gallery of Arms of the Museo Bagatti Valsecchi, is decorated in its entirety with chased and gilt bands on etched grounds in which plant motifs, birds and snakes appear. At the heart of the crest, within a scroll held by two putti, is set a wild boar, heraldic emblem of the Verri family: the beast holds a snake in its mouth and is accompanied by the motto Audere ulterius semper tantumque in melius. Likewise as being used in boxing as an important component of the suits of armour worn by men-at-arms and knights, the close helmet was employed in war games like tournaments. This beautiful specimen, which shows the influence of French models, was part of a suit of armour, or even of a 'garniture': a set of highly decorated 'pieces of exchange' that could be combined in different ways to meet requirements. The helmet can be ascribed to an important Milanese metalworking shop and stands out for the keen craftsmanship of its construction and ornamentation, in particular the utilise of hot gilding, an ancient and circuitous technique for the ornament of metals. Information technology belongs to the Bagatti Valsecchi house-museum's precious 15th- and 16th-century collections, fabricated up of paintings, sculptures and an extensive range of works of applied art, including furniture, jewellery, ceramics and arms, presented in a manner that reflects the original system of the belatedly 19th century.

www.museobagattivalsecchi.org

Museo Poldi Pezzoli

Fittings for belt, Milan, 1475-95
Cast, chased and filigreed silvergilt Buckle
cm ix.8 10 two.5
Girdle pendant
cm 9.7 x 2.2
Courtesy of the Fondazione Artistica
Poldi Pezzoli

The chugalug, from the precious collections of the Museo Poldi Pezzoli, was donated to the museum in 1901 following its discovery during an excavation at Vimercate, in the business firm of the brothers Carlo and Alfredo Tolla, and its subsequent restoration. Reassembled past Businesswoman Giuseppe Bagatti, inspector of monuments and excavations in the Monza region, the belt lacked the fabric office, while all the metal parts were nowadays: in addition to the fittings in that location were the studs, piffling suns with eight rays (the symbol of the House of Sforza), doubled in the terminal part with the girdle pendant, which would have been visible from both sides. This kind of stud was widely used in the golden decorations of article of clothing in Lombardy during the Renaissance. On the dorsum of the buckle is fix the goldsmith'south authentication, unfortunately no longer decipherable, and the fittings have a highly elaborate decorative repertoire: vine leaves, trefoil arches, floral motifs and tiny depressed arches, as well equally the caput of a putto between two scrolls. The metallic parts were restored by Domenico Collura in the workshop for the restoration of quondam metal at the Museo Poldi Pezzoli in 2009. The piece of work illustrates well the quality and refinement of these "accessories" which, in Milan under Sforza dominion, constituted an of import production, in quantitative as well as qualitative terms, by the skilled artisans of the weaving mills and goldsmith'due south workshops aimed at satisfying the tastes of a court renowned for its elegance.

www.museopoldipezzoli.it

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Source: https://www.mirabiliamilano.it/eng

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