Venetian-ness | Venice: I am not making this up

Marino Menegazzo: The last goldbeater

April 14, 2025 7 Comments

Gold on its way to being beaten into a leaf seemingly lighter than air. Believe it or not, this leaf is still closer to the beginning than to the eventual end. This is merely the first step; these leaves have just undergone their first pounding (20 minutes under the tilt hammer) and now will be cut into smaller pieces and beaten again.

Marino Menegazzo is beating gold leaves on a traditional block of marble, and is sitting because wielding an 8-kilo (17 pounds) iron hammer standing up would massacre his back. Turning gold into gossamer requires from 1200 to 1800 blows of the hammer.

For every “first,” there is a “last.” They come packaged together, kind of like up and down. Maybe you actually want your “up” to come down, so that makes you happy, but this particular “last” is serious. If you are seeking pleasant news today, you’ll have to look elsewhere. Sorry.

Slow-news-day stories from Venice occasionally bewail the shrinking population of the historic center (“real Venice” to me); the disappearing population of artisans, not so much. Venice’s fortunes were built not only on the cunning of merchants but the skills of the artisans who created whatever the people in the fancy houses wanted to sell. Now it’s 2025, and for an artisan to survive in Venice requires a fortitude and capacity for sacrifice that goes unnoticed by anybody except the tax collectors and landlords.

The result? The road to Going Out of Business sales. Two years ago, on April 20, 2023, Marta Artico wrote a report in La Nuova Venezia headlined: Venezia, in dieci anni hanno abbassato le saracinesche 4,000 artigiani. (“In ten years 4,000 artisans have closed up shop.” The statistics cover the metropolitan area, not just real Venice. But still.)

That’s bad enough, but what if an entire craft is slated to disappear? In the case of Marino Menegazzo, despite every effort, that is exactly what happened. Not in the distant past, but mere months ago.

Marino Menegazzo was the last man in Europe to beat gold leaf entirely by hand (I except the 20 minutes of the first beating by a 1926 tilt hammer, as similar hammers were in use centuries ago powered by water). And he didn’t beat only gold, but 17 various gold alloys.

Pure gold, leaf by leaf, seen as it is alloyed down to “white gold” — gold plus silver — in the center.

So now the skill, sensitivity and experience that he has perfected in his lifetime is gone, along with that of the centuries and generations of goldbeaters that preceded him.

Before I proceed, I urge you to read the article I wrote about him that is linked above. His story up to a few years ago is all there, so no need to repeat it all here.

The sign above his workshop/office/shop. (*Battiloro* means goldbeater.)

The “Mario Berta Battiloro” company was founded in 1926, and Marino had hoped to bring the family enterprise to its 100th anniversary. But no. The up has had to submit to its down. At its height (I refrain from referring to it as the “golden age”) the business had 14 workers producing 1,000 booklets of 10 to 25 gold leaves each every month and, in exceptional cases, even in a week. Impressive? In the 18th century there were some 340 goldbeating workshops in Venice.

Now Marino’s tools are silent, awaiting transfer to the National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan, and a craft/skill/art that made Venice shine like the sun will no longer be part of the city’s greatness.

His hammers (l to r) weigh 6, 3, 4, 8 kilos (13, 6, 8, 17 pounds). Pick up something that weighs 17 pounds and imagine doing anything with it besides putting it down immediately. And carefully.

Many, even most, artisans have to grapple with the most basic challenges to their survival, from rent increases to shrinking markets, taxes, the cost of materials, and the occasional debt, a struggle that too often has led to the same mundane conclusion. But the craft of goldbeating deserves more than a “Hey, whatcha gonna do?” Gold leaf continues to be produced in many places around the world, but not like this. Not even close.

These are the leftovers. Bits of gold leaf that are sliced away from the edges of the perfectly-cut leaves are piled together, waiting their turn to be melted down and pounded again.

Marino Menegazzo managed to weather the effects of the pandemic, which blocked his customers for too long, and not all of them returned. But the failure to find an apprentice — there were some, but one by one they moved on — was followed by being compelled to sell his laboratory to pay debts, some reaching back to crises in 2007. (He kept ten workers on until 2015 because “they were part of the family”).

The gold is smelted at approximately 1750 C (3182 F). After smelting, the pure gold is poured into a form to cool as an ingot.

This gold has no idea what’s waiting for it.

The ingot rolled through the laminator sets out on the long road to gold leaf.

Each pass through the laminator results in a longer and thinner strip, the first phase of becoming a leaf.

He takes the long ribbon of gold and cuts off whatever size piece is destined for goldleafdom.

The rest he folds up and puts in the safe till he needs another piece.

Losing the laboratory was the fatal step. He could certainly have kept going for at least a few more years if he’d been able to find a new one. Sound simple? Not in Venice. Because he works with flame, and has a few other technical requirements, he couldn’t move into just any old empty decrepit storeroom, and the search for an adequate new space was completely fruitless.

Appeals for assistance made to the city and the regional governments, and even to the diocese of Venice, were met either with silence or the kind of offers that are no better than none. Requests for meetings were ignored. A few foreigners seemed interested in coming to the rescue, but time was running out and there were no results. An artisan who in some other countries would be sustained as a Living National Treasure was left to his own devices. He wasn’t asking for favors, just a space! The Arsenal? Nope. A corner of the old ACTV yards at Sant’ Elena? Nope again.

So there you have it. There will be no more golden ribbons curling out of the laminator, no more leaves of gold patiently pounded to literal transparency. There will be no one who is capable of sensing the gold’s response to the winter fog or the summer drought and the heat and the pressure of his hammers.

Another piece of Venice falls away.

One gram of pure gold, circled in red. (One gram = 0,035274 of an ounce.)

One gram of gold beaten into 49 filmy-fine leaves.

He is working with the heaviest hammer here. He must adjust the force and the rhythm to avoid overheating the gold. The two packets, or “cutches,” of mylar sheets are held steady by the green “shoder,” made of parchment.

Here he’s working with the lightest hammer. You may think you could handle the hammer, but could you keep track of perfectly counting every strike of it? Because that is crucial, and studies show that the capacity to concentrate is deteriorating under the effects of smartphones and the internet. Goldbeating resembles some form of meditation, with weightlifting added. Is that a thing?

Menegazzo periodically checks the thinness (and the evenness) of the leaf. The nature of the light passing through it reveals how thin it is, or what more he needs to do. He can beat leaves so thin that he can obtain a thousand pieces from just 20 grams of gold. (Photo from his book on the workshop, I regret the quality here.)

After the first beating the leaves are cut into four pieces and interleaved again between sheets of mylar for the final beating. As you see, each leaf must line up exactly with the one before. I probably didn’t need to point that out. Notice the square lined notepaper nearby — it’s there to check alignments when needed. Again I state the obvious.

The final leaves have to be cut to the prescribed dimensions (there are many options). That’s where his wife and twin daughters, and an occasional helper, came in.

Eleonora Menegazzo assembling a “libretto,” or booklet, of the gold leaves as ordered. Like goldbeating, this also has a contemplative aspect, work aided by various tools including her perfect fingernails.

The adjustable cutting tool is called a “wagon.” I suppose I can see that, though it seems like one of those spontaneous “That’s what we’ll call it till we come up with something better” ideas.

Sabrina Berta, Marino’s wife and the guiding spirit of the workroom, was born into her family’s life of goldbeating. The workshop has barely changed over the decades.

The slatted floor simplifies the occasional clean-up operation to recover all the random bits of gold that have fallen by the way. Nothing escapes.

The angel Gabriel atop the belltower of San Marco gleams with Menegazzo’s gold.

Venetian-ness

the merry month of spring

April 7, 2025 24 Comments

A friend mentioned in a friendly way that it might be nice for me to lighten up (she didn’t put it that way, but that’s what I heard) and share some glances at Venice these days. Nothing easier.

In the search for diversion you can never go wrong with laundry. Here we have black clothes and white, and their children in the middle.

That was the day reserved for all the pink clothes. Or one red item that ran.

I can’t imagine that they have anything to talk about. They might have tried, once.

Inside and outside are such bourgeois concepts. They manage to mingle rather well.

I stopped for the reflection but stayed for everything the heck else. The palm frond is typically an appurtenance of ultra-pious Catholic groups. The nearby surveillance camera does hint at a belt-and-suspenders approach to security, though. The clips on the wall once anchored now-removed shutters. The significance of the flower in the pot eludes me. I am in love with the drainpipes.

I hesitate to deconstruct this moment’s delicate equipoise. But I think this father is happiest in the service of his daughter, the empress, so at ease with power that she doesn’t need to even look at her faithful servitor. No sarcasm here, I mean it. They’re both exactly where they want to be, and how often can that ever be said.

I loathe my cellphone’s camera, for obvious reasons, but it was my only way to grab this extraordinary conjunction of hair before they all got off the vaporetto. They seemed not even to know each other, but most likely they were all going to the nearby high school. Perhaps these tresses are required of some adolescent cult. I’ll never know.

I was there, and yet I still can’t explain why they all had open umbrellas. Yes, it had rained, but the street reveals that the danger was long past. They Just Were.

The city can’t win. It puts out a trash bin AND an ashtray. But these passersby did not believe in using either. Their disdain almost seems to express some message. Yes, we understand what you want, but we will defend to the death our right to not dispose of them as you require.

This tombstone carver is somebody I’d like to know. Or maybe he’s one of those people whose wit doesn’t come through except on paper. Or marble. Here he has substituted the standard “Mario Rossi” with the name of the “Universal Genius.” The sentiment is more modern: “We will always love you, your dear ones.” The dates are funny, though.

And here we’re laying this script and design on the shoulders of the divine Dante. I doubt that any classical scholar ever wondered what the tombstone would have looked like as the Supreme Poet wandered the underworld. But here at least the dates are correct.

Okay, if this were music it would be trills, arpeggios, scales, and the occasional mordent. I have no idea what the two geniuses mentioned on the marble would think about how their names are being treated, but I’m pretty sure a bereaved spouse or parent would fall apart in the face of all these possibilities. Butterflies for Michelangelo would be an audacious option, don’t rule it out too soon. (If anyone is interested, “N” stands for “nato/a,” or born; “M” is for morto/a, the opposite of born.)

The view from the belltower of San Giorgio never disappoints, especially if you appreciate this vision of Giorgio himself in his “bring it” pose, waiting for his dragon. If I were a dragon I’d have been far away, reviewing my life choices.

Venetian-ness

Christmas in Venice — the letter-carrier cometh

December 19, 2024 9 Comments

I don’t know whether they calculate according to volume or weight. Either way, to borrow a phrase, they’re gonna need a bigger boat. I mean cart.

Of course you have thousands of things to do in preparing for the upcoming holidays, and they will be tiring and inconvenient (I’m guessing). But your day is going to have trouble squeezing more than average sympathy from me because I this morning I got a glimpse of the letter-carrier’s day.

Do the words “weighty, awkward, cumbersome” added to ” a couple of awful bridges” bring Christmas cheer to your spirit? Not mine. This vehicle wonderfully shows the determination of the Italian postal system and its foot soldiers to get the serum to Nome. Sorry, I mean the mail — or your Amazon orders — to you. It reminds me of those fabulous motorbikes, the ones that buzz around Naples loaded with entire families, their sports gear (surfboards, lacrosse racquets, five-person tents), domestic animals, the Supreme Court, the 66th Armor Regiment, and so forth, as if it were nothing.

I used to admire the trash collectors, and I still do. But the letter-carriers have taken the game up to the Expert level.

One might categorize this construction as either a work of art or engineering. There could be anything here. Ernest Hemingway’s lost suitcase of short stories, or the solution to the Zodiac Code, or the Seven Cities of Cibola. Who would know? The letter-carrier was at the far end of the calle slipping an envelope into a letterbox. All I can say is that he must have a brain that goes into extra dimensions, because his route must be designed to a diabolical degree. Imagine arriving at an address and discovering that the item you need is on the very bottom underneath everything.

It occurs to me that his trolley has evolved in somewhat the same way of the average newsstand here. There are certainly some newspapers wedged into this pandemonium of paper, but as you see, the owner’s survival clearly no longer depends on the sale of newspapers.

Venetian-ness

watch those maneuvers

November 30, 2024 8 Comments

It is admittedly a narrow canal, and not the only narrow one in the city. But places to keep your boat are almost impossible to find, so one has to Make Do. But that doesn’t always Make Happy.

If you are close enough to read this, then this person may well be talking to you.

“Pay attention when you’re maneuvering / The executioners of your dead relatives / There is always damage to repair / at my expense.”

Let me explain about the executioner. “Boia,” depending somewhat on intonation, is one of the baddest of the bad words you can use in relation to people, things, phenomena, events, microbes, anything. To invoke the boia in any expression kicks it up numerous notches. Do not use it unless you mean it.

To draw a person’s deceased relatives into the situation is also an expert level insult. Putting them together means that this person is beside himself. Of course, you yourself can’t be offended by this because you are innocent. You have never damaged his boat when trying to squeeze past in your boat, you have never even gone down that canal. And if you did, as they say here, you were sleeping.

Seen from this angle, the canal does not, to my eye, appear to present any particular challenge to most passing boats. I see that the boat ahead of him still carries a fender that died nobly in service to its master, and you don’t hear him complaining.

Seen from this perspective, though, the boat is clearly in a risky position with regard to the 90-degree angle just behind it to the left. A boat turning that corner, entering or exiting, would have to really care about not scraping the boat on the right. If you don’t pay attention the tide will play tricks on you here, whether it’s rising or falling, and your motor won’t do much to save you from contact unless you are already prepared for the tricks. Most people with motorboats don’t even know what the tide is anymore. They may have read it about it once, riffling through *Moby-Dick*. So our exasperated boat-owner has been reduced to irritable fist-shaking. In his situation, I myself might have considered finding some more effective protection than those three little impotent fenders, but why fix a problem if you can just rant about it.

Speaking of narrow canals, this one isn’t much narrower than the one above, but it doesn’t have any insidious corners. Boats on both sides give the sensation of having to slalom past them, though obviously if you go slowly all you have to do is maintain a straight line. Too bad you have to slice through all those clotheslines and laundry on the way…. Notice that there is a wide difference of opinion among the boat-owners concerning the fenders, need for or usefulness of. The quaint little fronds of twisted rope are adorable. I wonder if they were ever effective.

In this case, the two boat-owners have hit upon the perfect method for protecting their boats from damage. Just make it impossible for anybody to get through. I have checked with my resident navigator/expert and he confirms that there is no secret way to slither through here. This canal is now blocked. I don’t think this situation would have lasted long, though. One or both of these bright sparks is clearly parking illegally, and it wouldn’t have taken long for someone who really needed to pass to have resolved the problem by calling the *vigili*. This isn’t annoying, this is ridiculous.

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