In a dusty, light-filled workshop on a residential road in Pietrasanta, Italian artisan Massimo Galleni pushes
his spectacles to the end of his nose and peers up at the face of his latest project: an ethereal ballerina he
has been working on for the past month. “She is almost finished, “he says, picking a chisel from his
coat pocket. “But there are a few things I can still do,” – he pauses, and begins to work at her alabaster hair-
line, carving a lock of wavy hair so that it frames her milky marble face-”to make it perfect”.
The sculpture, a replica of carlo Finelli’s Three Graces, in made from the popular Bianco P marble,
an opaque stone found in the Apuan Alps, a low lying, marble-rich mountain range that stretches through
northern Tuscany. Commissioned by an gallery in Florence, once complete the statue will be hoisted
onto a lorry and driven north, where it will be presented at Salone del Mobile, a popular design fair in
Milan. Work such as this is Galleni’s bread and butter in his studio, discarded pieces of marble littered
across the floor. Galleni creates perfect copies of some of Italy’s most famous works using just photographs
or drawings as reference. It is a skill that comes from more than 35 years in the trade.
After finishing art school, Galleni began working as an apprentice in and around Pietrasanta, opening
his own studio in 1996. These days his work is more in demand than ever. “Work is good”, he says, “I have
had commissions pretty much constantly since I opened. But it is the style of job that has changed. I
used to be doing exact copies of Michelangelo’s David, but now people want more intricate, detailed
sculptures, And they want them quickly”, he adds, laughing. “They always want them quickly”.
And they are willing to pay. For Italians, marble sculpting is big business right now – Galleni’s
American and Russian clients, for example, are prepared to hand over around €50,000(US$55,000) for
a lifelike marble statue. To keep up with demand, in 2015 Galleni did something he had been avoiding for
years; he bought a Scultorob – a €300,000 seven-axis robotic system for milling models and prototypes
“I am a traditionalist, I love working by hand, I did not want to turn to electronic machinery, “he says.
“But other studios had started doing it, even if they were not saying so, and it made their work faster.
They could turn around three sculptures in the time it took me to do one. I started to fall behind”.
Initially, Galleni was afraid the robot would replace his workers – he employs seven artisans,
some of whom work only by hand and others who use computer technology with traditional techniques.
But the arrival of the automaton actually increased their work. Galleni and his team now use
it daily, with artists from other studios and countries visiting to rent it out for €1,000 a day.
As we talk, the words artis and artisan flow through conversation almost interchangeably. But
Galleni is careful to note the difference: he is an artisan, not an artist. “If you want to be a musician it is
hard to be a conductor,”he says, gesturing around the studio where lifelike plaster renderings of Venus
de Milo and the David stand close to workbenches decorated with chisels, hammers and sanders, “Yes,
here I am the director of the studio but in reality I am the musician who simply replays someone else’s
creation. I would never think of exhibiting because I would not do an artist’s work well”.