As you stand on the red rug at the building’s entrance, it seems like you are on the threshold to another world. The faint jingle-jangle of a jeweled music box tempts you further into Dari’s shop, museum, and workshop.
This is a place where the workshop and its creations sit side by side. Display cabinets, designed by Dari himself, house hundreds of jewels, all forged by his hands. The planes of the cabinets’ pyramids pull you into the shop, like a painting’s perspective eases you into its action. It’s like walking into a treasure chest. Crosses and candles are featured in corners and in little alcoves; musical instruments such as harps and bells are hung up high, and pots of colored chemicals line the workshop wall to the right.
Round medieval-style lamps gently light Dari’s workshop, where tools have been cast aside haphazardly, ready to be used when inspiration takes hold. Many different materials frame his workbench, all at arm’s length to be grabbed when needed. Metal forms and wax molds can be seen in various states of design, and colored gems and stones wait in their boxes, ready to be selected and set.
Dari works literally on the same ground where Raphael and Michelangelo once walked. Raphael’s painting “Madonna of the Goldfinch” (circa 1506) was found in the building. Michelangelo and Raphael were friends of the Nasi family, who previously owned the building, and the painting was a wedding present for the family. The restored painting now hangs in The Uffizi Gallery across the river.
In 2001, Dari’s workshop was awarded the honor “Museo Bottega” (Museum Workshop) by the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities. And just as in any traditional bottega (workshop), Dari teaches. He’s an honorary lecturer on jewelry at the University of Florence. He’s also been offering courses in his workshop since 2014.
His work can be found in Florence’s prestigious Silver Museum (Museo degli Argenti), and in 2006, he was appointed the Vatican’s chosen artist.
Dari’s art is forged through his strong spiritual faith, which underpins his designs and his philosophy. Here, he shares a bit of both.
In the Renaissance, the three arts were united in the workshop of the artist. You could learn how to sculpt, to paint, and to be a goldsmith. Now, this no longer exists.
For an artisan, if you can’t use the object that is created, the item is meaningless. For an artist, an object is created because it has meaning. A good artisan takes care of the matter of an object. A good artist takes care of the soul; the artist tries to create something that is for the soul.
So the artisan learns to do 20 things, and for his entire life, he does those 20 things. The artist always tries to find something new to do, because he always feels something new: new collections, new forms, new everything.
This is like the difference between Beethoven and Bach. For me, Bach is the best.
The artisan can learn and use a technique, but the artist is different because he learns a technique, yet he also feels the technique, and understands it. Without technique, you can’t do anything. If you play Bach, your technical ability has to be perfect, otherwise you can’t give that sound.
Now, when I make a jewel, I draw the design and then make it without thinking about the technique. It’s as natural as drinking water for me.
But everything really started when I was 12 years old. I was playing in a fountain in Siena, and I found a ring. When I wore that ring, I felt that I knew all the things that I had to do in my life.
I see the jewel as a form in and of itself. It’s a sculpture that is meaningful on its own, beyond its price tag or needing the addition of precious stones and metals. The form can also simply be a stone.
The theme of the first chalice was the Resurrection. It was difficult, because to explain and to create the Resurrection, I felt that I myself, as an artist, had to resurrect from something. For a period of time, I stopped working on the chalice because I wasn’t able to feel that idea of the Resurrection. After a while, I heard a voice that said, “Life or death, it’s the same thing.” That’s when I felt I could start work on the chalice again; I felt I, myself, was reborn.
The artisan makes the chalice through hard work; the artist has to put his soul into the material as it’s difficult to explain something you feel, and something that cannot be touched. There is an understanding that the artist is—not always, but most of the time—he is suffering. As an artist, you can never create something in the same way each time, because you are not the same person; you don’t have the same feelings every time.
I started to study when I was about 16 years old, and I started to make jewelry by using that technique at around 20 years old.
The Etruscans saw women as sacred, so even poor women had jewels. It didn’t matter if the jewel wasn’t precious; every woman deserved a jewel. Etruscan jewels were made for their beauty, which is different than in Roman times, when jewels were linked to religion, myths, and goddesses.
Byzantine jewels are a mixture of the Etruscan style and the Orientalist style of jewelry. Byzantine jewels seem to be made for repentance; the fear of God is within each form. For a Byzantine jeweler, you had to create something good, as God would judge you. So you have that angst, and you had to be correct.
The metal jewel is then refined by smoothing or sculpting it. The very last thing is adding the stones; these are only for color, not because they are precious stones. They give that little bit of color to the form, to unite or to divide a piece. An artisan works differently; he creates the jewel around the stone.
The Renaissance and Gothic periods are an entrance that lets everything reach the soul to keep it alive.
