The fourth edition of ARTIGIANATO E PALAZZO offers us, once again, the opportunity for careful reflection on the role that the craft sector plays in our economic system, also considered in terms of its integration into the foreign market.

It has repeatedly been stated that micro-enterprises are an essential element of European construction, the connective network of development processes; this is especially true for our country, which boasts by far the largest number of craft enterprises in relation to other EU partners.

ARTIGIANATO E PALAZZO therefore makes a significant contribution to enhancing this important segment of the Italian economy, proposing in particular to valorise the figures of so many master craftsmen who encapsulate tradition, imagination, technique and entrepreneurship. We therefore consider it essential to focus above all on the content of a new and more in-depth entrepreneurial training. This is taking into account the characteristics of the craftsman, who is the expression of a multi-purpose professionalism, he is an entrepreneur and a worker at the same time, he is the person who has to take care of the external factors of the company’s life: from marketing to technological updating, to relations with banks, with the tax authorities, and so on.

The craft industry as a micro-business has special needs that it would be a serious mistake to confuse with the more general needs of industry or the service sector.

Events such as ARTIGIANATO E PALAZZO are also a stimulus to all institutional and associative players to commit themselves effectively – precisely because of the framework of the reforms undertaken and our entry into Europe – to the further growth and qualification of the entire Italian craft sector.

Pierluigi Bersani
Minister for Industry, Trade and Crafts

For the 4th edition of ARTIGIANATO E PALAZZO

We have reached the 4th edition of ARTIGIANATO E PALAZZO with the approval and support of a few hundred true artisans who still resist and fight to save their identity and the quality and refinement that only they can achieve. An Exhibition that, breaking away from the traditional canons of the other Exhibitions-Markets, for its cultural and popular contribution, wants to represent a moment of deepening on the “minor arts”.

All conservators of ancient objects and monuments know how precious the intervention of a true craftsman is in the maintenance and restoration of works of art: it is unthinkable to do without the atavistic taste, patience and passion that are the most important traits of a craftsman’s activity, which through the generations, form the most extraordinary fabric of a civilisation.

Starting from the idea that one handicraft is never the same as another, the exhibitors selected by us are once again called upon to demonstrate live the various working techniques in which they excel, using the idea of the ‘Palazzo’ as a showcase and a place for experimentation and realisation.

This year we would like to thank Valentina Grazzini and Elena Lombardi Vallauri, who helped us so much, Maddalena Torricelli, who took care of our Press Office, Marie-Madeleine Gimet and Valérie Fenot, our collaborators from Paris, and the administration staff, Cesarina Bigalli, Manola Chemeri, Fiorella Fanfani and Elmira Gorini, who together with Giuseppe, Maurizio, Romeo and Giovanni, followed us with kindness and patience.

We would also like to thank the Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze for always being at our side with confidence.

Giorgiana Corsini and Neri Torrigiani

The Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze Prize

Benvenuto Cellini’s Perseus lends its image and name to the Prize that the Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze awards to the ARTIGIANATO E PALAZZO exhibitor most appreciated by the public.

Cellini’s masterpiece, now under restoration thanks to the intervention of the Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, is the symbol of that encounter between humanism and technical evolution that made the Florentine Renaissance one of the founding episodes of European culture and history. An encounter that had precisely in the ‘botteghe’ one of its essential places.

And it is to this great tradition of Florentine workshops that the award is intended to refer, offering recognition to those who know how to keep alive the interest in the artisan ‘workshop’, for a place, that is, where quality is at home and where the final product is the bearer of culture. An artisan culture that the Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, thanks to its close ties with the territory, knows well and which, in its banking activities, it actively supports.

In the sign of Perseus, moreover, the Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze has set up an important communication campaign aimed at affirming the enduring vitality of the encounter between technology and humanism in its own banking activity. In its planning efforts, as in its daily operations, the Cassa has in fact as its primary objective the global quality of service as a result of the correct fusion of technology and human capabilities.

Aureliano Benedetti
Chairman of Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze S.p.A.

L’Ateliers des Meilleurs Ouvriers de France

This year ARTIGIANATO E PALAZZO is hosting seven French craftsmen selected within the ‘Ateliers des Meilleurs Ouvriers de France’.

The aim of this association is to promote the work of artisans, both men and women, who hand down this ancient art with their high-quality work and are the witnesses of the traditional French culture of craftsmanship.

This transmission of knowledge emphasises the duty to teach, to pass on tradition, to help the evolution of arts and techniques, to stimulate creativity using the new discoveries of science, and to give continuous hope for renewal.

It is like a long chain that has been created over the centuries and that from its various links, the craftsmen, draws the motor for its constant growth and becomes a formidable reason for existence.

Exhibitions, animations, conferences, are privileged moments that encourage dialogue, knowledge of one another, the discovery of disparate trades, a true mutual enrichment.

The greatest reward for the ‘Best Workers of France’ is when a child discovers the beauty of creation and feels born, by observing the worker at work, the taste for knowledge and the desire to learn a trade seriously.

Ateliers des Meilleurs Ouvriers de France
113, avenue Daumesnil – 75012 Paris (F)
telephone 0033/1/43383062 fax 0033/1/48061019