Winter 98/99 Volume IV Issue 1

Because of the Italian Renaissance of the pipe is in its full PipeSMOKE made a pilgrimage to Italy. We started in Rome and continued a peregrination around the country northward to visit the industry saints or sinners (depending on whom you ask), and hand carvers in smaller workshops, as well as large factories. But, with so many pipe manufacturers and an enormous range of stylistic variations, we decided to acquaint or readers with the pipe culture of Italy and look at the “schools” of pipe making. Rather than trying to list everyone or trying to establish hierarchies we tried to find some unifying ideas to help understand this recent phenomena Because it is nature and nurture in Italy to argue ones opinion vehemently and passionately, but without personal animosity, we must emphasize that the ideas expressed below are those of the individuals interviewed and not necessarily those of this magazine.

ROME: Shopping for Style and Culture
Fincato is a pipeshop dating to 1932, and located in the old Roman center near the eternal Pantheon and the ephemeral government offices. Here, Fauso Fincato holds court:: this is his empire. The shop's street level features well-stocked display counters and wall racks with all the standard brands of tobacco and pipe. Up a flight of steps is a lounge-like showroom and museum outfitted with arm-chairs, couches, coffee, magazines, and tobacco humidors for a fill. Here, customers who drop by for a smoke, a chat, a sample, or a purchase find Fincato’s best offering - his personal attention.

A universally acknowledged spokesman for the Italian pipe world and publisher of the distinguished magazine, SMOKING, this suave, silver-haired gentleman has a style that would serve well in the diplomatic corps - discreet and direct, but with an agenda. He says, for example, that Italian pipe smokers mostly don't buy what is commonly thought of as an "Italian" pipe - a large, freehand, fancy shape with baroque form or rococo ornamentation. What they like are the classics - standard. shapes that are time-honored but modified by the pipemaker's artistic sensibility "As with great big cigars, huge pipes in everyday use are moments of exhibitionism. The pipe will remain, as it always has, classic. It promotes the image of elegance and refinement," Fincato explains as he lights up a well- used Savinelli Golden Jubilee with a billiard bowl, a bit taller but slightly narrower than the sandblasted, thinner-shanked Dunhill bil-liard I am carrying with me.

We admire the Savinelli and the Dunhill, in the universal show-and-tell pipe lovers use to get acquainted, along with a Peterson billiard with silver mount and spigot that I withdraw from my pocket. "I can see that you like the classics too," Fincato remarks. "Look at the perfect form, the balance between bowl, shank, and mouthpiece. This Savinelli is the classic Italian billiard; yours are the traditional English or Irish versions," he points out.

In fact, most of the pipes Fincato displays in his upstairs area are classic and elegant, clearly, at home in a polished, urbane setting. "A pipe is something to carry in the pocket, part of the equipment of a gentleman. Novelty pipes sensa anima (without spirit) don't create their own future, but all of these classics do," Fincato opines. Creating the future is part of what the Italian pipe culture is about, but to do so it stands on the shoulders of the past.

This day, we are Fincato's luncheon guests at the Circolo della Pipa (Circle of the Pipe), housed in a 15th century villa that belonged to a Vatican official, and probably was occupied by the painter known as "Raphael" (Raffaello Santi, 1483-1520). The Circolo, self designated as "associazione cul-turale," a pipe club composed of the Roman noblesse oblige, uses this elegant little villa, high up on one of the city's seven hills, as a luncheon and dinner club, and as a gathering place for the members to meet for a convivial smoke, drink, card game, or chat.

A preference for the pipe, fine wines, and gourmet food unites Circolo members, and they discuss their passions over a meal, as a preamble to smoking (it is considered brittafigura - bad form - to smoke while others eat). A wide range of topics are discussed and argued: Is Ascorti the best designer of the Como school? Is it true that Radice is his cousin? Does Savinelli still uphold the old standards? Is Brebbia shifting away from classi-cism? Can you really classify the pipe carvers of Pesaro as a school with Giancarlo Guidi (Ser Jacopo) as their leader? What about Bruto Sordini (Don Carlos)? Are his pipes successful in the U.S.A.? Isn't Franco Rossi (11 Ceppo) a true classicist? Do Americans still like Alberto Montini's Mastro de Paja? Is Ardor well known in the States? Besides Aldo Velani and Thomas Cristiano, are there many brands of Italian pipes exported to America but hardly known in Italy? A lot of pipe knowledge here, and boundless curiosity.

After the meal, fine leather pouches emerge from pockets or the small leather handbags so many Italian men carry, and are passed around for approval or sampling. Treasured pipes surface and are examined. The air is filled with fragrant aromas of mostly nat-ural English-style mixtures and Virginias, and a few of the lighter Dutch and Danish cavendish blends. A bond is formed through the act of dining and smoking togeth-er in this unabashedly men's world of pipes, good food and drink, and fra-grant coffee.

Back in everyday Rome, we visit the shop and work-shop of Becker and Musico, just around the corner from the Trevi Fountain (as in "Three Coins in the one of the most densely tourist packed areas in Rome. Here, Paolo Becker, the son of the late famed pipemaker Federico (Fritz) Becker, and Massimo Musico work at making and repairing pipes. For pipe lovers it's a respite from the outside world, again with comfortable seating, magazines, tobacco samples, and glorious pipes. Massimo is known as one of the best restorer/ repairmen in Rome, and even performed "emergency" surgery on a dam-aged pipe in my travel pack.

Becker's work created a large following in the U.S. dur-ing the 1970s and '80s for large freehand shapes, mostly with a rusticated finish, and rare, per-fectly grained, smooth pipes. These days Becker still carves the freehands but is emphasizing a more classic line of medium-sized pipes with a British look and an Italian flair. "With so many younger professional men getting interested in pipes," he says, "most of my sales are [pipes] in the medium-size range and are intended for daily use, not for col-lecting."

A few streets away, Augusto Ain the Wuof. About herrascenzo's spartan shop, Regali Novelli, has the largest selection of Castello pipes this side of any-where. And so it should, because Parascenzo is the designated dis-tributor of Castello. Here the pipes are larger, more freehand than we've seen at the other shops and are "More for the Americans and Germans," Parascenzo tells us. This street-level store is built for speed, not comfort, a far cry from the cul-tivated and leisurely connoisseurship promoted by Fincato or Becker & Musico. Pipe culture is somewhere else, but the Castello selection here is fabulous. Choice reigns, not elegance.

But Rome is for buying: the real "schools" of artisans, their work-shops, and the larger factories are elsewhere.

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