In one of the rooms of the public library in Barga Vecchia there is a permanent collection of the works of the artisan and artist Vincenzo Gonnella (1901 – 1988), who was an expert in metal relief which he used to fashion vases, plates, vessels, trays and coins. There is even a plaque on the wall over his workshop commemorating the man and his work but there was also another artisan working in Barga up until the late 90’s who does not have any form of commemoration or any of his work displayed in a public collection but he is still remembered by many of the older inhabitants of the city and indeed in many houses around the city they still cherish examples of his work. His name was Luigi Da Prato but he was known right through the area as “Gigi Scaldino”. In his prime he was one of the finest artisans working in copper and other metals.
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Actually, all things considered – he was the last as one by one the workshops shut their doors for the final time. Repoussé and chasing copper work and decoration has died out in this area as the artisans have passed on but have not passed on their knowledge to the following generation.
The workshop that Lo Scaldino made famous actually does have its doors open at the moment for the first time in many, many years.
It sits in the cellars of a building which has recently been sold and is now gradually being renovated and restored. A quick peek inside reveals very little traces of former times but maybe you might just notice along with one of the small furnaces rusting in the corner- a single horses stirrup hanging on a nail and a small sketch of some wrought iron work pinned to the wall. An echo of former times.
Included in the images to this article is a photo through the open door of the workshop taken probably some time in the late 60’s or early 70’s, with Gigi standing proudly between two of his large creations before they were passed on to their buyers. They can be found in the foyer of a large local hotel, the passage of time dimming those bright colours of the copper to a now almost uniform drab brown.
There are also a couple of images of Gigi working on the last plate that he ever produced (this time in the workshop below his house on the Fornacetta)
He was photographed by Mario Riccardi and the award winning barganews O’Connor who documented the complete process from the very start of the work – the original drawings for the design, transferring the design onto the copper sheet, through to the melting and pouring of lead to make the base to support the plate while he slowly hammered out the final shape.
Repoussé is a metalworking technique in which a malleable metal is ornamented or shaped by hammering from the reverse side. There are few techniques that offer such diversity of expression while still being relatively economical. Chasing is the opposite technique to repoussé, and the two are used in conjunction to create a finished piece. It is also known as embossing.
While repoussé is used to work on the reverse of the metal to form a raised design on the front, chasing is used to refine the design on the front of the work by sinking the metal. The term chasing is derived from the noun “chase”, which refers to a groove, furrow, channel or indentation. The adjectival form is “chased work”.
The techniques of repoussé and chasing utilise the plasticity of metal, forming shapes by degrees. There is no loss of metal in the process, as it is stretched locally and the surface remains continuous. The process is relatively slow, but a maximum of form is achieved, with one continuous surface of sheet metal of essentially the same thickness. Direct contact of the tools used is usually visible in the result, a condition not always apparent in other techniques, where all evidence of the working method is eliminated. – source Wikipedia