Moretti Caselli on Huffington Post Canada
Rondi Adamson is a canadian writer, teacher and editor at Huffington Post. Some months ago she told her experience with two “overlooked jewels” in Perugia.
“On your next trip to Italy, what would you think about learning to make stained glass, or to weave on a 19th century loom? It represents a refreshing change from shoe shopping; certainly more edifying and probably less tiring.
Look no further than Perugia, a gem of a small city in Umbria, smack-dab in the centre of Italy, which has far more to it – thankfully – than the Amanda Knox trial(s). It has more to it than the Perugina chocolate factory, though the latter is worth a visit for many reasons, not the least of which is the all-you-can-eat part of the tour. And for artistically-inclined travelers who want to enjoy a hands-on experience in centuries-old craftsmanship, there are two museums in Perugia that should not be missed. Both, like Perugina, serve also as workshops/factories and offer lessons (in Italian and English).
After visiting in 2014, I stood in awe of their histories and products, and also of the fact that neither gets much publicity. Part of that is a particularly Italian thing: small, family-run ateliers producing something truly exceptional put their focus on quality. PR gets abandoned in favour of attending to detail. And detail is key in the work done at Studio Moretti Caselli and the Laboratorio Giuditta Brozzetti.
Studio Moretti Caselli
Leonardo da Vinci likely never imagined that centuries after his death, his masterpiece, The Last Supper, would be reproduced in stained glass. But in the early 1920s, an American client commissioned the Studio Moretti Caselli to do exactly that. Between 1925 and 1930, a 40 square metre duplicate was created for a chapel at the famous Forest Lawn Cemetery, in Glendale, California. At the time, the Moretti family were already well-known as masters of stained glass, and had created windows for some of Umbria’s most famous churches: Assisi’s Santa Maria degli Angeli, and Santa Chiara; Perugia’s San Domenico, and Cathedral of San Lorenzo; the Cathedral of Orvieto.
The studio was founded in 1859 by Francesco Moretti and set up in a house — previously owned by Perugia’s wealthy and powerful (back in the day) Baglioni family — full of high ceilings and windows near the historic Rocca Paolina. Five generations later, Moretti family descendants still share this cultural heritage, accepting both public and private commissions. When I visited in December, I was lucky enough to see Moretti’s great-great-great-granddaughter, Maddalena, at work.
The studio contains much furniture and art accumulated over the years, as well as books, photographs and sketches, and works that either had to be returned to the manufacturer or never even made it out the door. One such work is the head of Christ from the Last Supper, with a visible crack in the glass. Christ’s head, it seems, had to be redone three times, and the head of Judas five”.
The rest of story on:
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/rondi-adamson/perugia-italy-travel_b_6736176.html
