N°1 | 2004 TUSCAN FOUNDRIES
Historic investigation into an important European cast iron manufacturing region
The production of historical cast iron artefacts during the nineteenth century and the early 1900s involved the whole Italy, from North to South. With this publication, dedicated to Tuscany, we begin a journey through the different foundries, all vanished.
Through their sales catalogues the period postcards and the pieces of our collection exhibited in the Museum we were able to trace their history and to understand how important and long the activity of the Fonderia del Pignone was. In Florence from the mid-nineteenth century it designed and produced a sizeable range of artefacts for street lighting and urban décor.
Tuscany, renowned since ancient times for its iron processing, also had the Granducali Foundries in Follonica and the Michelucci workshop in Pistoia, all of which contributed to creating excellence in the artistic iron casting sector and helped Italy to compete with other important European regions for several decades.
INDEX
TUSCAN FOUNDRIES
ITALIAN MUSEUM OF CAST IRON: Collection of lamp-posts from the Pignone Foundry
Rome: Cambellotti’s artististic lamp-post
Florence: The candelabrum of the lily
Bologna: Lighting up the city centre
Parma: Light from the park
Milan: The sentinel of the ramparts
Florence: Imaginative lighting
Gubbio: The San Francesco lamp-post
Leghorn: Lights over the ‘little Venice’
The Pignone Foundry in the photografiphic archive at the Italian Museum of cast iron
THE IRON COAST. Mining and Iron Industry experiences in Tuscany, from classical times to the XVI century ironworks
THE GRAND-DUCAL FOUNDRIES OF FOLLONICA
THE PIGNONE FOUNDRY
THE MICHELUCCI WORKSHOP IN PISTOIA
THE VIENNESE COURT IN TUSCANY (1737-1859). The Grand Duchy of Hasburg and Lorraine and the first Exhibitions of the 1800s
IN THE LAND OF ETRUSCANS. Tuscan walks among art, nature and mining culture