Goldsmithing in Florence, Italy

I hated gold for the longest time.

In college, I purposefully avoided all the traditional jeweler’s techniques and materials. I learned to run electrical current through sulfuric acid to anodize aluminum, carved tagua nuts, riveted found objects on to silver pieces and explored a whole host of non-traditional art techniques. But set a faceted stone? No way. Work with gold? Why would I ever want to do that?

The Ponte Vecchio, literally the “Old Bridge,” has an amazing history. In 1565, butchers and tanners were kicked out and replaced by decree with goldsmiths who continue to occupy the shops along its edges. At the end of WW2, the Nazis destroyed all the old bridges on the Arno, except for the Ponte Vecchio.

Like so many of those naive adolescent statements we all make, I’ve laughed at young me a lot over those choices. Don’t get me wrong, concentrating on small-scale art to wear in my metalsmithing classes was great. I just found I needed to learn some of those traditional techniques once I could wrap my head around great designs utilizing them.

Learning to work with gold left me in a bit of a pickle (pun intended) though. It’s an expensive material to waste trying to figure out how to work with it. Then I found the best possible answer in the form of a workshop intensive held in Florence, Italy.

Not only was Florence where I was supposed to study abroad (putting myself through college I chose not to take on the debt it would have required), but as it turns out the city is known worldwide for gold work. So when I had the chance to take the last bench in the Metalsmiths in Florence (MiF) workshop October 2021 workshop, I registered before I had a chance to overthink it.

In the summer of 2021, international travel was still not really happening. The MiF workshops had been cancelled for about a year and half. I was in the last of three sessions which would be the first since lockdowns occurred. It was definitely a bit of a nail-bitter, but (spoiler) it all worked out just fine.

My daughter, Aly, graduated high school in 2020. This class of kids had so much taken from them. In her case, they were sent home to remote school in March with promises that they’d return in a few weeks, which we all know did not happen. She had her last day of high school without knowing it was her last day, no prom, no senior trip, no yearbook signing and no graduation. She also had saved up to go to Europe that summer to visit a foreign exchange student who had become a very close friend. Of course, that didn’t happen.

So, when the October trip to Italy presented itself, Aly opted to join me for a mother-daughter trip. Her friend from Germany ended up able to join us for the week I was in the studio during the day as well.

Florence

I heard a lot of opinions that I needed to plan trips into Venice or Rome or somewhere else in Italy, as 10 days in Florence was just too much. Contrary to popular advice, we stayed in the city the whole time and loved every minute of it.

A scooter outside a cafe in the Oltrarno

My first impression of the city was from the back seat of a careening taxi. We didn’t think the driver spoke any English until we got into the Oltrarno. Thanks to an anti-COVID-precautions demonstration, many streets were closed and our driver surged and spun from narrow street to winding interchange muttering in frustrated Italian. It felt like a scene from a movie, and I am thankful we didn’t take out a pedestrian or cyclist. But we arrived safely, dropped off luggage at our AirBnB and wandered off in a jet-lagged haze to figure out how to eat.

In the following days, between first-hand experience and the advice of locals, we learned a few things about not looking like an ugly American.

Lesson 1: 7:30 p.m is far too late to drop in someplace for dinner. Our first night, we grabbed a pizza margherita to go and it was amazing, but get reservations in advance if you want a sit-down dinner. Many ristorantes close for awhile before dinner service which commonly starts around 7 p.m.

Lesson 2: Go for aperitivo. Dang near every place has a happy hour at which you can get a glass of wine or light cocktail along with some snacks. I’m no expert but this seems to happen around 4-6 p.m. (which will likely be 16:00 to 18:00 Italian time). And it’s an incredibly civilized time for a light meal. If you go early enough, you’ll be ready for your 21:00 dinner reservation.

Lesson 3: You can read all you like about Florence being the birthplace of the Renaissance, but holy cow you can just feel history and Renaissance history in particular dripping from every part of the place. I had always loved art history, but Florence provided an entirely new perspective on that era. Try not to fall over when you get to the Duomo – it’s huge, it’s gorgeous and no amount of guidebook or art history book photos will prepare you for your first sight of it.

Lesson 4: There are Food Rules: a.) Don’t order milky coffee drinks after noon. b.) Don’t order more food than you can eat at a restaurant (it’s insulting to leave food and very American to request take-away containers) c.) wine by the glass will not be any particular label or vintage in many/most places but will be amazing nonetheless. I’m sure there are others that I completely failed at 🙂

The Duomo, which just mean “church.” The actual name is Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, and it took two centuries to complete. Read up on the amazing history here.

Lesson 5: Get some Italian under your belt. Sure, English is everywhere and you can do just fine. However, there are circumstances in which you’ll be glad you can supplement wild hand gestures when trying to communicate. We had to get COVID tests before flying home. We found ourselves at a farmacia that advertised drop-in tests. We did it, but it was chaotic and stressful thanks to our lack of Italian. A story for another post, but Italian governmental systems really aren’t systems, but more of a suggestion of a system. You also do not want to attempt to buy PMS medicine from a farmacia without knowing the right words. Trust me on this.

Lesson 6: Florence isn’t really a party city, but it’s loud at night. I’m preparing for another trip and looking at some hotels that offer soundproof windows. Definitely plan to check that out. We both found that sound carried up the narrow streets into our rooms and that people were out having fun very late.

Chianti

Tuscan vineyards as sunset.

We got to spend an afternoon in the Chianti Classico region of Tuscany. It was a wine tour, arranged through the workshop. I have always scoffed at these sorts of tours, but this experience changed my mind entirely. A good tour guide in an unfamiliar region can make the trip. Ours, Todd, was an American expat living in Italy for 20-some years. He took our group of nine to two wineries- both amazing.

I think it would be challenging to rent a car and drive yourself out to this area for tasting, so for that I would find a good tour to join. However, both the wineries we visited had a few rooms for visitors to stay. Now THAT would be a good reason to drive. It’s definitely worth seeing the region.

Middle of nowhere in Tuscany

Poggio al Sole tasting room

Aly and I at a Tuscan vineyard

My favorite meal of the trip was in rural Tuscany after the wineries. Todd had arranged the meal at a small place near an old Abbey. It wasn’t even really a town, just a couple of inns and a restaurant or two. We were served a family-style meal of Tuscan bread and tomato soup, followed by passed salads and meat and cheese plates and more food than I even recall.

Best meal in Tuscany was nothing but passed plates of mostly peasant dishes. Absolutely delicious and more fun than keeping a plate to yourself

As we left, those who wanted were offered the owner’s “COVID chaser” in one of several flavors. I think I chose chocolate orange, but they all sounded good. To partake, the owner retrieves a sugar cube from a jar of infused alcohol with a spoon, lights it on fire and the partaker quickly grabs the cube and downs it. One can blow out the fire first, but where’s the fun in that?

The Workshop

The workshop was amazing, of course. Giovanni, our instructor, is a master Florentine goldsmith with decades of experience in traditional Florentine metalsmithing techniques that date back to the 12th century.

Studio owner, Marghe, is an impressive contemporary metalsmith and teacher, and a great translator. No, Giovanni doesn’t speak English. I heard two, maybe three English words. But Marghe is a rock star translator.

The workshop started first thing with alloying 18k gold from fine silver, copper and pure gold. The remainder of the week was spent fabricating a ring with a prong-set faceted stone. I learned not only how to work with gold comfortably, but better filing techniques, a great technique for bezel fabrication from sheet metal and so much more.

The rest of the smiths in the workshop were a pleasure to work, and play, with and the “perks” of the trip were incredible (wine tasting in Chianti Classico region, museums, dinners, and so on.)

It was so good, I’m going back in May! More on that trip will definitely be coming.

If you are a metalsmith, I cannot recommend the Metalsmith in Florence workshop highly enough. Regardless whether or not you are a metalsmith, to misquote Audrey Hepburn, Florence is always a good idea.

Ponte Vecchio at night

Street near the Uffizi

Iconic merry-go-round in the Piazza della Republicca

Florence has amazing graffitti

Botticelli at the Uffizi

Aly was taking a life drawing class. Her assignment was to draw David

Aly getting her Italian tattoo by Bradipo Gonzales

My tattoo, part 1, from Martina Leopizzi. 

Pomegranates, the symbol of the Medici family, are all over the city

Sweets in the window of the oldest cafe in the city