Daniele e Letizia Traversari

The story of this historic workshop run by four generations of the same family began in Florence, when it was founded by Arturo in the late 1870s. At the time it was just a small workshop making souvenirs, but already specialized in high- quality micromosaic jewellery, produced for an élite and often foreign clientele.

 Through those refined objects the more sensitive tourists of the day were able to keep a tangible reminder, ‘in miniature’, of what they had admired and appreciated on the Grand Tour of Italy: monuments, classical ruins, landscapes, scenes of popular life or botanical subjects like the lily, iris and rose, symbols of Florence. 

In 1944 the business passed into the hands of Arturo’s sons, Alfredo and Aldo (whence the name Fratelli Traversari), who successfully carried on with the production of earrings, rings, brooches, bracelets, frames and crosses in micromosaic. 

Instead of the traditional square tesserae, this technique, developed in Rome at the end of the 18th century, utilizes what are called teghe (slender rods of vitreous enamel spun into various shapes and colours) created by placing slabs of Murano glass in a special furnace where, thanks to the skill of the filatore or spinner, are fused together to create different combinations of colours and moulded into a variety of forms: sheets, rose, daisy and forget-me-not petals, leaves and many other shapes.

In the 1970s Alfredo’s son Franco took over the workshop. At the age of just twenty-five, he commenced production of pictures in micromosaic, cut glass and a kind of mosaic made of semiprecious stones known as commesso fiorentino.

The Traversari workshop now produces costume jewellery made of mosaic on a brass and silver base and artistic mosaics depicting various themes: plants and flowers, landscapes or compositions that are accurate reproductions of famous paintings. 

For some years now Franco’s son and daughter, Daniele and Letizia, have been continuing the tradition with skill and passion, with the help of a small number of highly qualified assistants. They have introduced innovations into the company’s activity, but without renouncing the unique character and quality of an old craft that relies exclusively on manual techniques and requires a special mastery, made up of technical skill, knowledge of the materials and refined taste.

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