Adrien Brody gives a friendly greeting, 3-star chef Massimiliano Alajmo serves the best asparagus risotto ever and Andrea Bocelli gives a private concert: “The Art of Craftsmanship” is a celebration of Venetian artisans organized by Tod's in Venice. Our author was there.
“Intimate Dinner” was written in calligraphed letters on the invitation. And then you stand yourself tête-à-tête in front of magnificent Tintoretto paintings in the church of San Rocco, which is unique even by Venetian standards, marveling at the majesty, the eternal beauty, and also the illustrious guests – a small circle is relative. Adrien Brody gives a friendly greeting, 3-star chef Massimiliano Alajmo serves the best asparagus risotto ever and Andrea Bocelli gives a private concert among the unique decorations in the sanctuary on the first floor of the “Scuola Grande di San Rocco”, which has never been opened for such an occasion. But that's what happens when Diego Della Valle and his brother Andrea Della Valle, President and Vice President of the Tod's Group, invite you to dinner to celebrate what is so dear to them: Italian craftsmanship. In this case the Venetian. A fair for Italian culture. It was also important to acknowledge the partnership with the Italian pavilion at this year's Biennale, which curator Luca Cerizza and the artist Massimo Bartolini are showing under the title “Due qui/To hear”.
The Della Valles have always been advocates of the Italian way, of the beauty of their millennia-old culture, on which the global company they have built is based, and they see their success as a self-evident, personal obligation to regularly support the cultural treasures of their homeland with large sums of money. Years ago they gave 20 million euros for the renovation of the Colosseum in Rome, are long-term supporters of the Scala in Milan, and now they are financing the renovation of the late Roman Palazzo Marino, the Milan town hall. Among other things. They publish magnificent books about the “Italian Touch”, the “Aria Italiana”, and the “Art of Craftmenship” directed by Tim Walker. Quality and style are the measure of all thinking. It was always like that, it wasn't always appreciated; for a while, the fast-moving hype thinking in fashion gave business competition to the guardians of timelessness and durability. Not just at Tod's. But now perception has changed globally, what Diego Della Valle has always postulated is understood and appreciated: “Luxury is sustainable.”
Although this doesn't necessarily apply to young people who continue the time-honored techniques. It's not even in stock. A cross-industry problem, but it is particularly essential in the old craft sector, where knowledge and experience are passed on from person to person. The Della Valles have also made it their mission to uphold and revive the attractiveness of these professions, out of personal inclination, patriotism and from an entrepreneurial perspective. A new chapter opened for a few days with the exhibition “The Art of Craftsmanship – A Project by Venetian Masters” in the halls of Tese di San Cristoforo, the former shipyard of the Arsenale Novissimo from 1525, across the canal across from the Italian Pavilion grounds. The traditions are as old, the setting is as modern. Handcraft meets digital embedding. The wire of the oversized red neon coil in the forecourt framed the entrance and led centrally through the same space inside the nave to a neon sculpture of a Gommino shoe hanging from the ceiling. Basically the Ariadne thread of the exhibition and an installation by Federica Marangoni.
Eleven Venetian masters, including the glassblower Roberto Beltrami, the goldsmith Marino Menegazzo, the rowers Saverio Pastor and Piero Dri, the glass masters Matteo Seguso, lamp master Lucio Bubacco and the mask maker Sergio Boldrin presented their work methods and their interpretation of the gommino, the shoe, The Tod's were developed at the end of the 70s based on the driving shoes of the 50s whose trademark is the sole with 133 rubber stones. An icon in itself, which is already clear in the work of Rumuald Mesdagh and Alessandra die Gennaro from the artifact mosaic studio, who used small, carefully beaten travertine stones to place only the nubs in their typical oversized arrangement on a white base. No explanation was needed as to what this could represent.
The glass engraver Matteo Seguso milled full-size shoemaker tools into colorful glass and assembled everything into a workshop table. Sounds simple, but it's the opposite and fascinating. Piero Dri and Saverio Pastor are among the last “Remèri”, or rowing carpenters, working in Venice, a job title that has officially been part of the Venetian craft since 1307. They make the rudders and the wooden “forcula”, the holder in which the gondola rudder rests. Each rudder and each forcula is custom-made for the respective gondolier, adapted to the physique and personal rowing style. A visit to Saverio Pastor's carpentry shop, where he and the rowing and sailing expert Pietro Meneghini also make equipment for top athletes, should not be missed on a Venice tour (Soranzo detta Fornace, Dorsoduro 341). For the exhibition, Piero Dri shaped a forcula like a hand and Saverio Pastor shaped a rudder like a needle, from whose “eyelet” a leather thread traced the profile of a gondola.
The glassblower Roberto Beltrami from the island of Murano had blown a Gommino in full size, including the knobs. A video installation showed the fascinating process; this work would not have been possible on site. Bertrami, who had lived in Boston for a long time before deciding to get into traditional crafts, spoke willingly and passionately about his work. Also about the fact that he has no problem finding offspring. He did identify what could be the cause. “Italian masters are not only committed to their craft traditions, they also adhere to ancient training traditions. According to the motto: Before you touch anything here, sweep the workshop for a few years and take a look.” Of course, that’s not the only thing. But one aspect.
Meanwhile, the hour struck unmistakably. Marino Menegazzo, a slim, older man in an elegant olive-colored smock, was hitting a package with an enormous wooden mallet with a rounded front. Again and again. He didn't even look, instead smiling at everyone around, while everyone got nervous because the hammer whizzed just millimeters past their hands. But Menegazzo has been doing this for decades, he is a gold beater, one if not the last of his kind. With his wife he runs their family business Berta Battiloro. She sat at a table a few feet away, cutting small gold leaves into squares and stacking them in a tissue paper booklet using special long-handled, leather-tipped tongs, a Carello.
Meanwhile, her husband pounded tirelessly on the pack at the start of an eight-hour procedure that begins with the melting of a gold bar. Menegazzo described it like this: The ingot is pulled through a rolling mill several times until it reaches a length of two meters; the sheets are then cut into small squares and stacked into 350 pieces of parchment paper. This so-called package is first hammered for 40 minutes until it turns into a round sheet with a diameter of 11 cm. Each individual leaf is then quartered and inserted into thin, clear paper, making a package of 1700 leaves, which is then hand hammered for 50 minutes if used for external gilding, or up to two hours for very thin material. At the end of this process, each individual sheet must be cut off and packed into the hammered package. Each leaf is removed from the packet, picked up with wooden tongs, placed on a cushion and then blown on the center to flatten it. The leaves are then cut into a perfect square using a carrello (a special tool consisting of two blades on a wooden handle) and placed in a tissue paper booklet. From this, for example, the completely golden Gommino was created. And also the golden box for it. While Marino Menegazzo is hammering, someone says that he will be closing his workshop in four weeks. He has no successor. Despite the golden ground.
