La Bottega · the workshop
How a wallis set
Three setters, one long bench, crates of smalti from Venice and Ravenna. This page is the method in five stages — then the bench is yours.
Follow one medallion, start to finishI / V · 0 tesserae set
I
Il cartone The drawing
Everything starts as a full-size drawing, the cartone: flat colours and a firm outline. It decides the figure, not the pieces.
II
L’andamento The rows
Before cutting, the setter decides the rows: the outline row hugs every edge, and each next row echoes the last. That flow is the andamento.
III
Il taglio The cut
Smalti come as thick glass cakes. On the hardie — the tagliolo — with the hammer, the martellina, a cake is split into strips and the strips into pieces.
IV
La posa The setting
Pieces go into the bed row by row: the figure’s outline first, then its filling, then the ground rippling out from it.
V
La luce The light
Last, the light. Gold is pressed in at slight angles so the finished surface catches a lamp differently at every step.
Il banco · the bench
Draw the andamento
Drag a line across the bed. The engine lays rows of tesserae along it — the first row on your line, each next row echoing it — exactly the way it set the whole wall.
draw a curve here
0 tesserae
A week at the hardie
Learn to cut
Five mornings and five afternoons at the bench, six people at most. You cut smalti on the tagliolo, learn to read an old floor’s andamento, and set a medallion of your own to take home.
- Length
- 5 days · 9:00–13:00, 14:30–17:30
- Group
- 6 people
- Price
- € 680, smalti and tools included
- Next weeks
- 2–6 Nov · 1–5 Mar · 10–14 May