When I decided to come to Italy to teach English after university, my
choice of city was greatly influenced by my mother’s stories of the magical
summer she had spent here 30 years ago as an apprentice to Giulio Giannini,
learning the old Florentine crafts of bookbinding and paper marbling. In the
family’s workshop above its store, she learned the ancient skills of cutting,
sewing and gilding old volumes, as well as the art of applying and mixing
colours in water for marbling.
Soon after I arrived
in Florence, I went to visit the place I had heard so much about: Giulio
Giannini e Figlio (www.giuliogiannini.it). Directly opposite
the Pitti Palace, a wonderful display of marbled and printed paper with
swirling designs and beautiful colour combinations, has enticed passersby into
the store for centuries. Inside was Maria, who upon discovering that my mother
had worked there so many summers ago, greeted me like an old friend, asking
after my mother and taking down from the shelves an exquisitely decorated book
to send to her as a present. She gave me a tour of the shop showing me all the
products they make, from pencil boxes and notebooks covered in marbled paper,
to leather bound and gilded books. She was rightly proud of this remarkable
shop, and of its long history-she is now the sixth generation of Gianninis to
run it.
Pietro Giannini, who
founded the shop in 1856, was principally a bookbinder, who catered mainly to
the large community of foreign literary aristocrats who dominated Florence
during the nineteenth century: Elizabeth Browning’s ‘Sonnets from the
Portuguese’ and ‘Casa Guidi Windows’ were published by Giannini. The Giannini
family was very influential in the development of bookbinding, creating what
became known as the stile fiorentino (‘Florentine style’), vellum bindings finely decorated with gold leaf and
inlaid with distempered leather. Even today, the family still uses its own
style of stamping and gilding when decorating book covers, employing an
impressive collection of over 3,000 traditional tools and stamps, some more
than two centuries old.
As the population of
foreign aristocrats in Florence dwindled at the beginning of the twentieth
century, the Gianninis increasingly turned to paper marbling as a source of
income. This ancient craft, once widespread throughout Europe, became
increasingly centred in Italy, and particularly Florence. Today, replaced by
mass-produced factory paper, it is rarely practised anywhere else, kept alive
by only a handful of workshops in Florence, with Giannini’s being the oldest
and most important. As the family perfected both contemporary and traditional
processes of bookbinding and paper marbling, they built an impressive
repertoire that continues to grow even now.
Maria and Enrico, her
uncle, who runs the shop with her, hold workshops for anyone interested in the
crafts of paper marbling and bookbinding (workshops by appointment, individuals
or groups; in English or Italian). Participants learn about the complicated and
delicate processes of mixing paint (made with anything from algae to egg yolk),
combing it into patterns in oily water, and laying the paper. They also explore
the various stages of bookbinding, including the intricate inlaying and
stamping that can take up to several weeks to complete.
It was hard to tear
myself away from the Gianninis’ shop. The rich colours, the smell of paper and
leather: they breathe traditions that are centuries old but very much alive
today. And they entice the visitor to return, if only to marvel at the skill of
this remarkable family-and to acquire a small example of their beautiful and
justly renowned craft.
