News

The surprise at the inauguration of the School of Arts and Crafts of the Fabbrica di San Pietro was the unveiling of the award, a bronze medallion, from the European Commission’s “Europa Nostra.” The award was presented in Brussels on October 13, crowning last year’s project in the “Education, Training, and Skills” category.
The school’s fourth course began on Monday with a festive presentation attended mainly by young people, which took place in the Palazzo della Canonica, the headquarters of the Fabbrica. Twenty aspiring artisans were admitted to the school after a selection process: 13 women and 7 men, including marble workers and stonemasons, bricklayers, plasterers and decorators, carpenters, mosaicists, and blacksmiths. Some of them are under twenty years old and come from different parts of Italy, while two girls come from Ecuador. They will learn from exceptional teachers in a place that, thanks to its history and culture, St. Peter’s Basilica, is a “gym” of beauty. Working with your hands in the digital age, as Emilia Rio, the operational director of the Fabbrica di San Pietro, pointed out, is a counter-trend choice, but one that looks to the future, not the past.

H.E. Card. Mauro Gambetti, Archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica and President of the Fabbrica di San Pietro, gave the keynote address, led by journalist Piero Damosso, and outlined the lessons that will be covered in the coming months. “You cannot work well without thinking well and having a well-disposed heart,” said the cardinal. “The School wants to impart professional skills but also human skills, because each of us is responsible for putting the talent we have received to good use, so as to give life to a community of fraternity and peace. It is in the fusion of craft and human skills that the highest level of expressiveness and work is achieved.”

“Tradition is about keeping the fire alive, not worshipping the ashes.” Father Francesco Occhetta, director of the School of Arts and Crafts at the Fabbrica di San Pietro, used this quote from Gustav Mahler to urge the young apprentice craftsmen present to “give shape to the dream you represent, thanks to this experience of community building and friendship.”

The school was re-established four years ago, but scientific director Assunta Di Sante pointed out that it is “the heir to the 18th-century heritage of the workshop, which saw theoretical training at the Academy of San Luca and practical training at the Fabbrica di San Pietro.” Before the plaque was unveiled, architect Alessandra Vittorini, former superintendent of L’Aquila in the post-earthquake phase and director of the Ministry of Culture’s School of Higher Education, as well as a member of the Europa Nostra jury, also spoke. “At the heart of your work,” she told the students, “is the community of practice, where people work together on the same project, but from different points of view, in the spirit of coexistence even outside of work.”

In the end, the protagonists were the students on the course, many of whom had just come of age, introducing themselves one by one, talking about their dreams and conveying the excitement of an adventure that is just beginning.