A school of Art and wood restoration
The lack of an efficient number of qualified workers in various camps of restoring operations concerning wood and of the Art of wood was the base of the origin of this Institute born in Anghiari in 1961.
The school was to constitute the system in which its student was to formulate his own critical and social personality thanks to the learning of various techniques, from the work process and preparation which contributed to develop intuitive and logical capacity, providing as well, those universal values which belong to all society. In the Institute of Art, specialized in the art of wood and restoration of antique furniture, one looks for a cultural climate most suitable to reawaken the sensitiveness of the students so as to allow them to produce with awareness of the reality in which we live.
The cultural and operative preparation of the students in the five-year term is so to permit an insertment in the working world, providing them with the possobility to continue their studies in university courses.The Institute of Art of Anghiari is not equivelent therefore to your basic school, which is simply directed towards general artisanship, but something more elevated and complete. The proof is shown by the collection of authentic works of art in wood by the same Institute, constantly visited by delegations of other schools in Europe.
At the end of a three year term a diploma in Master of Art is issued by the Institute, meanwhile after a successive two year term the degree of Applied Art is achieved.This diploma therefore permits access to all university faculties and to higher courses directed towards art. The participation in public competitions held by the Ministry of Cultural Well Being in the position of restorer or designer, the participation to competitions for executive career placement and public administration, placement as specialized personnel in design in industry and projection studies, and teacher of applied art (cabinet making, marquetry, carvering, lacquerering, restoring of antique furniture).
An economy through the Centuries
Anghiari, being a rustic community in itself, was a center rich in artisan shops. The government of Abati Camaldolesi (XII-XIV centuries) was, with its liberalness, the most efficient incentive in the expansion of the village, giving rise to a vivacious market as well as srtisan shops; vases, iron, masters of stone and wood, wall masters, weavers, gun makers, shoemakers, cabinet makers, millers, etc. The importance of building activity, probably the main pillar of Anghiarian economy, was verified also by the fact that the only corporation recognized by the statute was that of Master of stone and wood. Between 1500 and 1800 the art of wrought iron affirmed success along with the production of fire arms or rifles, pistols, and rare pieces of a refined art now under custody in important collections and national and foreign museums. Antique scriptures in the Municipal Archive hands us down names which at times go back to more than a generation of operating activity in the same family of high valued artisans.
It can be read that in 1475 Folco and Neri di(son of) Cristofano di (son of) Pisanello di (son of) Cristofano, iron smiths of Anghiari, quoting from medieval Italian…"tolsero a pigione dallo Giusti la sua bottega, dal Mercatale con i mantici, accendino, la rota con tutti i ferri e legnami che adoperava Giov. padre di Ser Giusto essendo anch 'egli fabbro.
"In 1424 fifteen iron shops existed in Anghgiari. In 1485 Ciprani di (son of) Baldassari di (son of) Guido,obtained a license from the Anghiarian Community to open a leather tanning shop. In 1486 Birsina di Batista, a wood-cutter, did the door of Saint Agostino. On the 4th of August, 1554, Gregorio di Marco da Modigliana, weapons maker,for having made lead bullets for the muskets and lances for the artillery and other things for the corp.
Between 1700 and 1800 in Anghiari, we find a Matassi designer and a Vallini engraver who were also gunsmiths. It seems that the bulino had found prevalent applications in the decorating of arms, in the refinishing of iron, in the fabrication of brands, and sometimes in the counterfeiting of coins...In Toscana, towards the close of 1700, economic activities were a notable impulse for the new politician Grand Duke Leopoldo I. It is certain that in Anghiari the products were benefitted by environmental factors like the woods which furnished fuel for the working process, and the ironand copper mines active on the Rognosi Mountains, between Montauto and the Ponte alla Piera, on an antique Roman road. Above all, though, the area had a great tradition of craftsmen able to offer a highly qualified work of art. In the early years of the last century Anghiari had a population of five thousand habitants. There was a wool-mill for fine and coarse cloth which employed 30, a leather tanning shop which employed 6, a grill and railing factory,a wool dying factory with 25 workers, 20 crockeries and gunshops, 13 water-mills, 6 iron works.The weaving industry used a cultivation of 98 acres for canvas and one of 147 acres for linen. The cultivation of woad, for dye, was also considerable. In 1833 we can speak about important businesses; a wool mill, eight fulling mills, five dye shops, two hat and felt factories, two weapons shops, a factory of surgical instruments, two powder shops, three earthenware kiln shops. These businesses were purely artisan and on a shop level. Work in iron and canvas was also frequent. Up until and for part of this century, the artisan level of remained traditional. Tipographic art surged and affirmed in a factory of musical instruments.
Among the businesses deserving maximum honor we remember in 1873 the crockery in terracotta presented by potters Luconi and Mondini at the Universal Expo of Viena. In 1910 at the Expo in Milano the shoes by the artisan Desiero Allegretti, and in 1935 the lutemaker Milton Poggini recieved the Cross of Merit and the Medal of Gold at the International Expo in Paris.
It is also for these illustrious precedents that Anghiari felt the need to create a new structure that reconnecting with the local, popular, artistic tradition, could also repond to a modern artisan. So, in 1962 with a decrete from the President of the Republic, the State Institute of Art of Anghiari for the Art of wood and restoration of antique furniture ( l'Istituto Statale d'Arte di Anghiari per l'Arte del legno e il restauro del mobile antico) began.The Artisan Market (La Mostra Mercato dell'Artigianato) which takes place every year at the end of April wants to reppresent the rediscovery and the recognition of those artisans that, heirs of an illustrious past, present in this exhibition products of their mastery, methodology, and originality,
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