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Patrizia Ramacci
the Immortality of Masterful Hands
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December 2025
“Roma su misura”: the new Craft Shopping Guide dedicated to the Eternal City is unveiled
Rome, Publishing
A guide conceived to tell the story of Rome’s beauty and its disarming grandeur. A greatness born of precious details, like the tiny tesserae of its mosaics, the veining of its marbles and the drapery of its sculptures.
December 2025
“Applied Arts in Lombardy in the Nineteenth Century” at Castello Sforzesco
On the evening of Wednesday 10 December 2025, in the Bertarelli Study Room at Castello Sforzesco in Milan, the volume “Le arti applicate in Lombardia nell’Ottocento. Artisti, collezionisti, esposizioni e musei” was presented.
December 2025
“A regola d’arte”: the Stamperia d’Arte Busato workshop at Museo Poldi Pezzoli
Milano, Print
The artistic lithography workshop led by master printer Giancarlo Busato at Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Milan was met with great enthusiasm and participation. The event formed part of the “A regola d’arte” programme supported by Fondazione Cologni.
December 2025
Starhotels Award “Il bello dell’utile”: call for entries extended
Milano, Concorso
The deadline for submissions for the La Grande Bellezza by Starhotels Award – “Il bello dell’utile” has been extended to 15 January 2026 at 8:00 pm. The award is open to artisans resident and regularly working in Italy.
November 2025
Pasta Diva: an unprecedented tribute to the quintessential Italian dish
Publishing, enogastronomy
“Pasta Diva” is the new title in the “Mestieri d’Arte” series by Fondazione Cologni with Marsilio Editori: an original tribute to pasta, our national dish par excellence. Written by Andrea Grignaffini, a well-known and highly esteemed author in the world of food and wine, the book becomes even more precious and enters a fantastic dimension thanks to the dreamlike and visionary illustrations of Paolo Rui.
November 2025
The “Archivio delle Mani Maestre” arrives at the Chamber of Deputies
Roma
The “Mani Maestre” were presented at the Chamber of Deputies on Wednesday 12 November. The meeting was opened by the Vice-President of the Chamber, Anna Ascani.
Interviews
Patrizia Ramacci

Hands that care are not only those of medical professionals or body practitioners. More broadly, they are the hands of artisans — hands that tend to the material of the world, mastering the very technique of beauty. With this belief, Patrizia Ramacci, master craftswoman in plasterwork and founder of the Bottega d’Arte Gypsea in Gubbio, has created a poetic and ambitious project, constantly evolving: the Archive of Masterful Hands, a collection of plaster casts of the hands of outstanding Italian artisans from every field. A tribute intended to grant them a form of immortality, but also a celebration of the intimate joy of making that those hands embody.

Lorenzo Foglia
Florence, Master, Metal, Silver

Since 1935, Florence has been home to a goldsmith’s workshop specializing in silverwork that has gradually established itself as a true academy of the craft. The founder Carlo Foglia first, then his son Giuliano, and for many years now his grandson Lorenzo have all helped write the recent history of the silversmith’s art, creating extraordinary objects and training chasers who have taken their expertise not only throughout the city but around the world.
Today, the works of Lorenzo Foglia—named a MAM, Maestro d’Arte e Mestiere, in 2018—are the mature fruit of an absolute command of traditional techniques, a broad historical culture, and an expressive freedom which—much like in the finest Renaissance workshops—elevate his sculptures and all his silverwork to the status of high art. In his words, one senses all the awareness and passion of a craftsperson who looks to Cellini and Leonardo as guiding spirits.

Daniele Mingardo
Padova, Master, Metal

Born into the craft, Daniele Mingardo is a young yet established master of metalworking who, at a very early age, transformed his family’s successful business into a thoroughly contemporary project. Passionate about design and naturally drawn to challenges, at just 25 Daniele shifted the perspective of the metalworking company founded in 1970 in Monselice (Padua) by his father Ilario. Alongside commissioned work, he introduced a collection of handcrafted objects with an elegant, minimal style, designed by a network of international designers under the guidance of an art director and produced in limited editions. A successful idea that did not sacrifice but instead enhanced Mingardo’s artisanal soul, giving rise to a new brand that embodies the essence of contemporary craftsmanship.

Lanificio Leo
Catanzaro, Master, Fashion, Textile

Emilio Salvatore Leo, architect and designer, may not be a master of the arts in the classical sense, but he is undoubtedly a master of lateral thinking—a perspective that has allowed him to reinvent his family’s historic wool mill, transforming it into a creative hub with an international outlook, open to a variety of influences and narratives. By experimenting with intangible assets—history, brand identity, relationships—he reconnected Calabria’s oldest textile factory not only with the territory where it was founded in 1873, but also with the rest of the world. He achieved this by shaping the project with a clear political vision, even before an entrepreneurial one: our land, our people, and our art are the very essence of Made in Italy.

Fabio Ottaviano
Torre del Greco, Maestri, Scultura

"It’s hard to make people understand what lies behind a cameo." That’s how our conversation with Fabio Ottaviano began—marked by a sense of pride and a hint of mystery. Ottaviano is a master artisan of miniature shell cameo engraving based in Torre del Greco, close to Naples. Son of Pasquale—himself a student and heir to Giuseppe Scialanga, one of the great Neapolitan cameo masters of 19th-century —Fabio spoke to us about the daily joy of creating beauty with infinite precision and passion. He also shared the deep satisfaction that comes from seeing his sacrifices recognized, and the challenges of working in a system that, in Italy, still struggles to properly support and protect its artisans.

The song of coral
Sciacca, Master, Coral

Laura di Giovanna Nocito creates unique jewelry from the coral of Sciacca — a treasure the waters offered to the Sicilian town nearly two centuries ago — making this precious gift of the sea "sing." The heir to a family whose legacy has been shaped, generation after generation, by remarkable women, Laura was named a MAM – Master of Arts and Crafts in 2024 for her extraordinary talent in the goldsmith's art. In the following interview, she shares the captivating, almost mythical tales that led her to make coral her life’s craft.

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