How a table runner came to be...
Growing up in northern Italy, I didn’t think much about Umbria, a region in the center of Italy - when I say in the center I mean exactly in the center. There may be more than one reason why I had an opinion about Umbria; maybe I associated it with San Francesco whose poetry I had to study in school, maybe the lack of beaches and mountains suggested to me a certain dullness about the area, or maybe I simply thought it was an uninterested place, period.
Growing up in the Alps, which are majestic, and spending my summers in the Croatian coast where the sea is deep blue, made me think that small hills were not so striking. For me It was either high mountains or deep sea, nothing in the middle.
The first time I went to Umbria I was in college, and with a group of friends we drove down to Orvieto to attend Umbria Jazz; an internationally renowned jazz festival. The music and Orvieto were amazing. I knew that one day I was going to go back, but what I didn’t know is that it would take me years before I would be able to return to Umbria. When I finally did it was with my family, and we could not miss Perugia, the region’s main city.
We stayed in Perugia for a couple of days, and we couldn’t wait to visit the city. We were all so excited about Perugia; all of us for different reasons. Both my son and nephew couldn’t wait to visit the chocolate factory, Perugina. Despite being hot, we went to the premises, so hopeful to taste their truffles, and tour the factory. However, I didn’t make any reservations thinking that it wouldn’t be a big deal since it was not high season, but this time going with the flow turned out to be a mistake. We would have had to wait a couple of hours to get in, and we were told that the Chocolate Truffle Making class was not part of the tour - it required reservations made well in advance. We decided not to wait for the next tour. Lesson learned for next time.
Skipping the Perugina factory visit meant more time for sightseeing. My husband simply wanted to walk around and see the old city inside the walls. We were driving, and decided to park in a public parking, but we managed to get lost despite following a gps and parking signs. I stopped somebody for directions, and he suggested to park at the Partigiani’s parking lot. However, he said it was too complicated to explain how to get there, it was going to be faster following him. The reason he was so adamant about this specific parking lot was that we would have had to go through the beautiful Rocca Paolina - a Renaissance fortress - to reach the centro storico. And that’s exactly what we did.
If the locals find out that it’s your first time in Perugia, they will go out of their way to point out things not to miss, like this guy did with us - at least this is my experience. I am not from Perugia so I don’t know everything about the city, and I welcomed his suggestions. On the other side of the fortress it’s easy to take Corso Vannucci all the way to the main square, Piazza VI Novembre, where both the Cathedral and Palazzo dei Priori - today the city hall share a portion of the same square. They are one across the other, as it should be and as it has been for centuries; the religious and political power keeping an eye on each other. And so we started visiting churches (there are masterpieces inside not to miss), Palazzo dei Priori, squares, gates, narrow alleys, and so on.
In addition to visiting the usual palazzi and monuments, I personally couldn’t wait to put my hands on Italian textbooks and reading books for learners of the Italian language. Because of the University for Foreigners of Perugia in the city there are multiple publishers of study material of Italian, and well stocked bookstores. I could spend hours looking at their inventory. The university was founded in the 1920s with the aim of teaching Italian civilization and heritage to international people; today its focus is teaching Italian language and culture, and training teachers of Italian. It is located just outside of the Etruscan Arch (about III b.c.) one of the seven city gates.
We almost left Perugia without seeing what I really wanted to see; the handweaving workshop and museum Giuditta Brozzetti. My family was not very enthusiastic at the idea to spend an hour or so at a textile museum, but I managed to convince them with the excuse that it was located in an area outside of the main tourist attractions, north of the main square near Porta Sant’Angelo - Saint Angelo Gate. It was a great opportunity to see something different.
In the morning we headed that way, parked outside the city walls, and started walking toward the area. I knew the museum was open only in the morning so there was no time to waste.
We walked through a metal gate and a side door of a deconsecrated church, Chiesa di San Francesco delle Donne. There was not a sound inside, so I had to make sure that it was ok to walk in. It was enough to say “ e’ permesso?” and right away we were greeted by Marta Cucchia, the great granddaughter of Giuditta Brozzetti. Her great grandmother Giuditta started the workshop in 1921 with the intent to produce high quality textile for interior design following the Umbrian weaving tradition. In fact, she was inspired by women in the area who weaved in their houses to meet their household’s needs, and eventually she started to collect, record, and preserve traditional Umbrian designs.
The workshop has been managed in the years by four generations of women and each brought her personal touch, passion and interests. Marta Cucchia studied interior design and architecture and it definitely shows in her work. The workshop has an amazing collection of antique hand weaving looms, including Jacquard frames, some over 200 years old. Quite fascinating, and in excellent conditions. It’s breathtaking to watch them still work perfectly.
We started to walk around the beautiful building admiring the tablecloths, blankets, pillow cases, curtains, lamp shades, and fabrics being weaved as we walked by. There are wonderful panels with detailed information in multiple languages about the history of the workshop and its mission. However, we couldn’t help not asking questions...and it ended up that Marta gave us a tour and showed us how the looms worked even though we didn’t make a reservation. The museum’s admission is free, but guided tours require a reservation.
The boys were completely captivated by hand-weaving, and they fell in love with the flying shuttle technique. One of the weavers took her time to demonstrate and explain to them how to weave using this particular technique, while Marta was explaining to me and my husband how some of the Jacquard looms work. These looms use cards to create a design, very similar to binary system computer cards - very fascinating.
It is also striking that the atelier has been collecting antique Umbrian designs from paintings, and art work. In fact, today they reproduce designs from Perugian altar-cloth seen in Medieval frescoes and paintings, from Etruscan tombs and pottery, from Renaissance churches in Perugia, and from nature.
One question led to the next and the conversation ended up on custom made items. I fell in love with the traditional design and the beautiful hand-woven fabric so much that I thought that a table runner would look amazing on my custom made walnut table that my husband made. I started a conversation with Marta that day about size and cost for a runner. She showed me threads and colors available...so many colors. She also suggested walking around and looking at her creations to identify designs that I may like. Our conversation continued over emails.
When I left Marta she suggested sending her pictures of my house so she could make suggestions about colors and design for the runner. And that is exactly what I did. We went back and forth but we knew we wanted a Damask design, with the Latin motto Per Aspera Ad Astra. After 30 days it was ready.
Our runner was made with a XIX century Jacquard loom. Before starting working on the runner they had to mount on the loom 1800 warp yarns - it took them 15 days to complete the process; however, they will be able to use it for six months. They also had to prepare spools of yarn for the weft yarns. Two shuttles were used to insert the weft over-and-under the warp using the flying-shuttle technique. It took 2 full days of weaving to make the runner, which was needle finished. In total three weavers were involved in the process.
Our decorations were chosen among 200 designs from the workshop. The Saint Peter’s design in between the words is inspired by the wooden choir of the Renaissance church of San Pietro in Perugia. The griffin or grifo is the symbol of the city of Perugia. The Latin sentence Per Aspera Ad Astra was used in Seneca’s and Cicero’s work - it means “through hardships to the stars”. And finally the wild cornflower or bachelor’s button is prolific in the Umbrian hills and Etruscan decorations. The cost was of €324 with free shipping.
If you'd like to visit the museum, check their website or contact them at email@brozzetti.com for information about their schedule.
As always, until next post!
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