Feature: Where are roots of Italian artisans' passion for their work?

by Marzia De Giuli, Ge Chen

ROME, April 5 (Xinhua) -- They work a lot but will never become rich, however they love their job and would never do anything different. Two Italian artisans owners of two bookbinder's shops in Rimini, a city in central Italy, have explained the reasons behind their commitment to quality.

"Would you have imagined this shop to be bigger?" Paolo Castiglioni, 33, asked Xinhua amid a variety of new and old books, photo albums, degree theses and menu holders that he binds or make right again with the help of some artisans' machinery at his "Legatoria Anonima" (Anonymous Bookbinder's).

Castiglioni said he works around 12 hours a day six days a week on average.

"It is certainly tiring, but I like my job and am not seeking anything different. I prefer to work 12 hours and like my job than work 8 hours and not be satisfied about what I do," he added.

"Quality" is what makes his small shop survive in times of mass production.

"My clients are not coming here to save 5 euros (5.7 U.S. dollars), but to seek quality ... for most of them, the sentimental value of the objects that they bring to me is much higher than their commercial value. I have clients, for example, who love ancient novels, religious books or medical manuals. They may have taken their own notes there and do not want to replace them," he explained to Xinhua.

Working in a small shop alone, just helped sometimes by his wife and by a French trainee, Castiglioni has neither the strength nor the goal to start a larger scale production.

"Just to make a few examples, my menu holders are not standardized, but different one from the other according to the colors or materials of the restaurants that order them," he said.

"And I would never bind with faux leather a book dating back to the 19th century," he also added. "For me quality is more important than competitive prices, because my shop is focused on high-level results," he told Xinhua.

Castiglioni observed that being an artisan is a "responsibility" linked to study, passion, family values and also an innate predisposition.

"I want all of my clients to be happy, if it happens that a client is not satisfied, I do all the possible to solve his problem and make him happy, which is for me a great personal achievement," he stressed.

Castiglioni said he was born into a family of artisans, as his grandfather and father were carpenters. Actually, he noted, there is a tight relation between his job and what other artisans do with wood, iron, glass and all kinds of materials.

He said he happened to become a bookbinder when after high school he began to help his brother at the shop, without knowing that he would have inherited his knowledge and his activity soon.

"All of this is my brother's merit," he highlighted.

"He was very courageous in pursuing his dream of becoming an artisan, and then also an artist, and never stopped in front of difficulties," he pointed out.

Castiglioni's brother Luigi Castiglioni had made bookbinding for 15 years as a hobby at home.

"People have different hobbies. Some play football, some collect objects, my brother loved bookbinding. He worked as a waiter but in the free time used to bind books with simple ancient-style techniques that he had learnt by himself through practice," Castiglioni recalled.

His brother later decided to attend a bookbinding school in Ascona, Switzerland, before opening the shop in 1999 and leaving it to Castiglioni a few years later.

"Since then, my brother has further specialized and has decided to work at a home laboratory where he now welcomes exclusive clients. He also often travels abroad to meet experts in his niche sector, he has become a successful bookbinder on the international level," he said.

Castiglioni told Xinhua he hopes he can transfer to his small children all the passion that he has learnt from his brother.

"They are only five and one and a half years old, but I would like that at least one of them continues my work in the future. However, I would rather see my shop closed one day than see it carried out without the passion and attachment that my brother and I put in it," he concluded.

Mei Agostino, owner of another bookbinder's in the same city named "Legatoria Romagnola" (Romagna bookbinder's), has a different story but the same love for his job.

"I have been working as a bookbinder for almost 50 years," the 70-year-old told Xinhua.

Agostino learnt the work at a professional school in Turin, a city in northern Italy, where his family sent him.

"At that time we did not have so many possibilities of choice, and I did not even know what this job would be like. After the school, I practiced at a bookbinder's for six years and then started my own business in Rimini, step after step," he recalled.

Bookbinding is more common in other European countries such as France, Germany and Britain than in Italy, which is however now seeing a rediscovery of this and other artisan works. Once a time, Agostino told Xinhua, bookbinders were busy with encyclopedias and documents of lawyers, notaries and public offices.

"Nowadays my skills lie in finding solutions for different things. My experience has grown wider through the years but is never enough," he said.

"I will never become rich, but I always have a lot of work, and being an artisan especially means achievement," he went on saying.

"For example, I have asked just 20 euros (22.8 U.S. dollars) for this, which will cost me over an hour's work plus some materials," he said pointing at an old book.

"I see many people attached to books that they have had for many years, any kinds of books, and I have to find the best solution which is fair for them but also rewards me without making me lose too much time," he explained to Xinhua.

"Making money is not the first objective for an artisan, as satisfaction comes first," Agostino insisted. That is why quality, which is made of "appearance and resistance," is fundamental.

"I would never give to my clients something that I know will break soon, even though it means putting extra patience and time in my work. I am satisfied only when the work is well done," he highlighted.

In his view, Italians are very capable by nature, especially due to their individualist attitude that makes them want to create things and achieve their own results, which is a reason why the country has boasted many successful artisans.

"However, nowadays it has become difficult both for young people in Italy to start a business and for experienced ones to train them, because of heavy bureaucracy and very high taxes," he noted.

Agostino, who works from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. just with an hour's stop at lunch, said he wishes sometimes that he could take a long holiday.

His sons have chosen other paths, so that he plans when he will retire one day to teach the job to a young person who might take over his activity. And from that day, Agostino will have some free time to dedicate to another passion that he has had no time so far to cultivate in his life: "reading books, which I like so much," he said.