ARTS & CRAFTS by Anne Marshall

WOOD

The name “Bottega artigiana” has had a magic ring to it ever since the cinquecento when some of the masterpieces of the Renaissance came out of Botteghe artigiane in the back streets of Florence, many of which are still there to this day. Somehow Artisan Workshop or Werkstatt does not sound quite the same. Here in Bolgherishire we have our share of artisan workshops including Fabrizio Guidi, a craftsman in wood who has been plying his trade for the last thirty four years in a nineteenth century villino in Cecina’s Piazza Carducci. The workshop is a cobweb and sawdust covered museum of cabinet maker’s tools as Fabrizio is a collector and his massive work bench dates back to 1929. Here he restores furniture, much of which he seeks out himself all over Italy and libraries are his speciality. He also makes antique frames for mirrors and is an expert restorer of chairs redoing straw bottoms or those in paille de Vienne. Finally many of the carved wooden signs at the entrance to local vineyards are the work of Fabrizio. Piazza Carducci, 18. Cecina

Artisan Workshop

Bottega Artigiana

Frame

Gragnoli

ARTISANS IN BOLGHERI

Gabriele Fantozzi

ARTS & CRAFTS

FRAMES

In 1982, Benito Gragnoli and his wife, Daniela, made a decision that changed their lives, leaving remunerative careers in the north of Italy to become frame-makers in Donoratico in their charming bottega artigiana in the main street at number 135. Although over the years Benito has branched out and also restores and sells antiques and objets

d’art, specializing in antique prints, their main focus was always on frames. Everything and anything can be framed from an antique gilt frame for an old master to a high school diploma and I particularly like the frames in natural olive, walnut and cherry wood with their respective passe partouts. Daniela, a much loved figure in Donoratico, sadly left us last year,

but her exquisite taste continues to grace the walls not only of locals like us but of international Veeps as they are called here, even the Royal House of Orange. Via Aurelia 135. Donoratico

WROUGHT IRON

At L’Artiera Vulcanus, the Stellati family has been working in wrought iron in their Bottega on the via Aurelia since 1966.

Theirs are the gates to all the big wine estates, the curlicues on the glassed in terraces outside the restaurants and the grilles on the doors of the bank and the newspaper and tobacconist’s shop in Bolgheri. Basically there is nothing Roberto Stellati and his son- in-law Gabriel and their co-workers cannot make out of iron: bedsteads, chandeliers, tables and chairs…even a crucifix which was presented to Pope John Paul II on his historic visit to Livorno.

I am eternally grateful for my fire-irons which have never sagged even under the weight of our Christmas logs. Via Aurelia, 76. Le Colonne di Bolgheri.

ARTISANS IN BOLGHERI

In Bolgheri itself we have three Botteghine artigiane of our own. Gabriele Fantozzi is an artist in terracotta in his bottega in via Lauretta. He specializes in basreliefs evoking local themes, with cypresses, sunflowers and scenes of Bolgheri. In the Chiassetto delle Rime Nuove, Lorella in her tiny workshop paints exquisite flowers and fruit on bowls, plates, vases and anything made of glass or ceramics.