In the beginning of June I took part in an organized tour to visit Italian Master engravers in Gardone Val Trompia valley. The whole thing was put together with Elena Michel Lamboy and Chris DeCamillis. Elena was born there in the valley and knows all the valley engravers and gunmakers, she was also our translator for the whole trip.

The trip was very-very nice and I liked it a lot. It is quite an experience to talk with best of the best engravers in the world and see their engravings in real life. Both finished and works in progress. Most of the engravers had very simple workshop, for some it was just large window facing north, a vise and a push graver, what they call bulino. Nothing else. Although, usually they had hammer and chisel with different gravers too. Of all the places we visited, I saw only one engraver using microscope, others had Zeiss 10x jewelers loupe and only one studio, which had air assisted graver. It was Creative Art and they used it probably for background work etc, not for the main engraving. With these simple and basic tools they create just jaw dropping engravings.

I arrived at the hotel in Valtrompia valley on Sunday evening and what a view:

View from the hotel

A little overview of whole trip:

Day 1

• Creative Art

First day, first visit and what a treat. Creative Art is an engraving studio with quite a few engravers and they do all styles of engraving – sculpting and fine bulino work. Luckily for us, there was one just recently finished gun frame in sculpting and one done with bulino.

Creative Art sculpting

Creative Art engraving

Creative Art bulino scene

Creative Art engraving

Creative Art engraving

Creative Art engraving

• Beretta Museum

Beretta Museum panorama

Gun at Beretta Museum

• Bottega Incisioni di Cesare Giovanelli

Bottega Giovanelli

Engraver working at Giovanelli’s

They had also quite a lot of engravings on display, a photo possibility not to be wasted.

Engraving at Giovanelli’s

Engraving at Giovanelli’s

• Lionello Sabatti