Tradition is not a detail

With the family vocation stretching back over centuries, boatbuilding and repair is clearly in the DNA

- BRUNO CIANCI

Over 300 years ago, in the gulf that a century later would be found so striking by Lord Byron, Mary and Percy B Shelley, Charles Dickens and painter JMW Turner, Stefano Faggioni’s ancestors had already devoted themselves to what would become their family’s principal source of livelihood – the construction and repair of working vessels. Born in La Spezia in 1969, son of Ugo (d 2000) and grandson of Guido (d 1977), Stefano Faggioni embodies the passion of a man wholeheartedly devoted to his profession. Even the surname (the double ‘g’ voiced like the ‘dg’ in kedge) derives from Faggiona, a small town in the Ligurian hinterland, named after the ‘faggio’ (‘beech’ in Italian), a tree whose timber was used in Roman times to manufacture the oars of galleys.

The historical headquarters of the Faggioni family is located in Cadimare (La Spezia), a typical Ligurian village, highly authentic even today. The studio lies within the family home, one of the oldest in the area. It is a construction characteristic of many villages in Liguria, in being built by the Faggionis in the 1700s using recycled naval materials. The beams, in fact, are ship masts; rudders have been found in the planks under the pavements, and the floors are slightly inclined to allow washing water to flow towards the entrance; the front door itself, as well as a dining table and chairs, are the remnants of a scrapped ship once of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Nautical culture is everywhere.