Pitti Mosaici

Active since: 1982
Areas of interest: Mosaics; reproductions in pietra dura

Pitti Mosaici was founded at the beginning of the 1980s, yet its actual history dates much farther back. This family of artists indeed traces its beginnings to the late 19th century, when grandfather Emilio De Filippis left the province of Isernia for Paris, where he studied the art of marble sculpture. Roughly 50 years later he returned to Italy to begin executing sculpted works with his son Ernesto, mostly in churches and other sacred spaces. A family tradition was thus born, which was continued by Emilio’s grandson, also called Emilio but who goes by the name of Ilio. After studying architecture in Florence, Ilio made important changes to the tradition: he gradually moved away from religious sculpture to take an interest in residential architecture. But during his studies, he discovered another manufacturing technique: the antique art of inlaid pietra dura, ‘the art of the Medici’. Ilio De Filippis opened his laboratory in Piazza Pitti in 1982, continuing this particular Florentine art of creating reproductions in pietra dura and semi-precious stones, a technique known as commesso fiorentino. Ilio works together with his children Isse and Iory, who represent the fourth generation of family artists.

Their workshop is now well established and continues developing into a true artistic business specialising in the creation of large mosaics and inlaid panels and tabletops. Today the laboratory is accompanied by an interior design and architecture studio which realises projects for clients throughout the world, both in classical Italian and Tuscan style as well as in a modern key. Located in front of the majestic Palazzo Pitti, the showroom can be viewed by appointment: guided tours give visitors the chance of admiring the company’s works, which include furnishing accessories, antiques, decorative objects and mosaics depicting nature, animals and Tuscan landscapes. Both local stone varieties – the same ones that have been used since the times of the Medici – as well as others arriving from all over the world – marble, pietra dura and semi-precious stones – go to form the ‘palette’ from which Pitti Mosaici selects its raw materials: after all, commesso fiorentino is the technique of ‘painting in stone’.