What a coincidence: about a month ago a gemmologist from Pistoia Lucia Gori, told me about this place in Firenze. Two days ago a friend of mine Carmen, native from Canarie island but living in Florence since long time, brought me here and I immediately recognized the name engraved in the marble outside the door: Lastrucci! The same Lucia told me about .
Just behind the beautiful Santa Croce Basilica, in the heart of Florence, if you enter in here, you can think you are in another world: in the Renaissance period, immersed in an amazing, fascinated location.
Smiling faces welcomes me and my friend and kindly showing us the techniques used: every step is handmade with calm and stressless, skilled hands – young hands ! – cutting stones as in the past with sand, water and lots of time and patience.
Stones cut by hands and put together as a painting, following a model with high precision, attention and of course, a great passion for this work.
It has been really amazing for me such a big jump in another century, just passing through a door: like to be in a film, you find yourself in another era, nobody told you that in an instant you are no more in the noisy Florence full of cars and busses, crowded streets of tourists and traffic lights: no, you are in the peaceful Florence of XVI century with horses and carriages, with long dressed ladies walking, not driving !
Then I’ve been invited to visit another room and…
They are NOT paintings, they are all mosaics: can you believe it?
I could see so many different materials, stones and colors
Such a great surprise, such an instructive lesson not just of arts itself but even of life: living in another dimension, having the patience to cut a stone with just the help of a sort of arch with a thin wire, while outside everything and everybody is running so fast with WI FI !
I promised I will come back with more time to spend there but until then a big thank for bringing be back to another magnificent world that is part of our past.
P.S.
Of course you can even buy something, if you like, and bring back with you a masterpiece like this here below… white Carrara marble maybe? and other precious stones
