About Me...
Nowdays, with the growning popularity of internet, there are many ways to get involved in a given community, but when several years ago I joined the pipesmokers one, I would have never thought that one day I would have built my own pipes. I am 43 years old young, from Rome; but behind the pipe, in this case, there is a story made of silence and memories that began in England in the mid-70s, where my father was working as sculptor and scene designer in Sheffield and Leeds. When I went to visit him during the summer, it was always an astonishing experience for me in that bright and soft landscape flecked with green. I perfectly remember the smile of my father whilst he was smoking his pipe as well as the peaty scent of burning tobacco.
I remember his house with its large windows that overlooked a bare small garden, the dusty warm afternoon light was splitting the halflight in the hall, highliting the burgundy opaque velvet of the sofa and the brown worn carpet on the floor; the air was still and soaked in that scent of burned tobacco. In those days I realized that the pipe was a common object among the people who met at my father's studio where I spent my time between sculptors, film makers or simply eccentric characters. Sometimes the air seemed more spicy and somewhat sweet. In the coming years my father left England and stopped to smoke his pipes, I was growing up and I forgot everything including the little English that I learned through the conversation.
Suddenly, at the beginning of 90s the pipe came back into my life when a day a friend of mine showed up a smoking bent between his theet. It was like a blast from the past, I remembered everything and that same day I went to a tabacconist and bought my first pipe, a billiard with saddle mouthpiece and a pouch of hand rolling virginia. I had no idea what I was doing, but it was fun. In the next few months I started with the compulsive buying phase and I purchased pipes and tobaccos of any kind, so I ended up with a dozen of pipes and as much tobacco as I needed. Over the years I have learned to select only what I really liked, improving the way to approach the pipe. In 2007 the curiosity led me to build my first pipe and it was a surprise for me when that same day a friend of mine took that brand new pipe for himself. After a propaedeutical visit to Rafa Martin in Valencia, I began to snoop around the Musicò's workshop -formerly Becker&Musicò- , in Rome, where I finally found my way, understanding what requirements must a pipe have to be worthy of its name. Currently I am developing a modern british style designed to bring freedom to the classic shapes.