The Ancient Woodworkers' University
Founded at Turin in 1636...
The word Minusiere (Woodworker in English) derives from the French language
and has also been synonymous with minute or fine woodworker as compared
with mastro di grosseria or carpenter more in general. History and geography have
always tied Piedmont to France, so wood technology and terminology are often close
relatives of equivalent French expressions.
Turin's Woodworkers' University was created in 1636 - a symbolical date
as the University as a body for professional regulation had already existed,
probably ever since the 13th Century. The oldest document we still have
and which is traditionally considered as the official birth certificate
of the University of Woodworkers, Cabinet-makers and Carriage Masters of
Turin is the istrumento of July 7 1636 for the purchase of a chapel (the
first to the left on entering the church) of the Parochial Convent Church
of Santa Maria di Piazza in Vicolo Santa Maria at Turin.
This church was governed by the Carmelite Fathers; the notarised convention
of July 7 1626 was attended by the Chapter chaired by Prior Reverend Father
Domenico di Santa Maria. The other party was represented by 12 woodworkers
with their Lord Mayor Giovanni Battista Truccone. The chapel in question
was granted to the Company of Woodworkers for exercises in devotion particularly
on the days dedicated to Saints John and Anne, their special Protectors...
The woodworkers undertook to found, accommodate and embellish the chapel,
provide it with a beautiful painting (today the Holy Family by Mattia Franceschini,
a Turin painter who studied with Beaumont), a railing, hangings and furnishings
and to pay fifty silver Lire in 20 soldo pieces each, in three years.
This 1636 agreement with the Carmelite Fathers of Santa Maria di Piazza
is not only important as the symbolical birth certificate of the Company
of Woodworkers but also as an evident proof of is pre-existence. In actual
fact, the document certifies that a woodworkers union existed before those
years, and was duly organised to act legally in the name and on behalf of
the Company.
The paper is also interesting for the religious history of Turin, as it is the
foundation act of one of the many charitable institutions in places of religious
cult and chapels founded by associations and guilds of arts and professions.
Each guild in fact had its own Patron Saint with chapels in the various parts
of town at that time: in the Cathedral, Painters and Sculptors, Surgeons,
Shoemakers, Goldsmiths and Bakers all together in the Company of Saint Luke;
in the Jesuits Complex of Via Dora Grossa (today's Via Garibaldi),
Bankers, Shopkeepers, Merchants, Nobles and Lawyers; in San Francesco,
Tailors, Locksmiths, Wall Masters, Stonemasons, Lugging Stickers, Pharmacists
and Notaries.
The oldest regulations whereby the Turin Woodworkers disciplined their
activity with Royal Assent dates from the mid 17th Century. A document of September
30 1654 submits to Carlo Emanuele II a four-point memorandum for him to approve
them one by one and make them effective with letters patent. The stated reasons
given by the applicants is to... serve public and private persons with the quality
required in such an art, without complaints from or between citizens... The actual
intention was quite obviously to restrain unauthorised persons and obtain special
jurisdiction for occupational controversies.
Feature: the Ancient Woodworkers' University
Cabinet-makers operated side by side with woodworkers. They can
be defined as specialists in working furniture with ebony or other precious
wood inlays and are a closed élite. The cabinet-maker of the Baroque era
was the heir to the ancient art of inlaying, which consisted in connecting
different woods to form figures similar to mosaics and painting, according
to Vasari who define inlays as a wooden mosaic.
Though Turinese arts and trades are rooted in the 14th Century, the period
of greatest creativity of Turinese woodworkers and cabinet-makers was during
the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries, when one can quite rightly speak of Piedmontese
furniture.
Magnificent examples of Piedmontese furniture are to be seen in ancient
churches, museums, historical public buildings and especially in the many
Savoy residences at Turin and elsewhere in Piedmont. Many great architects
inspired the art of Piedmontese furniture making, such as Filippo Juvarra,
Benedetto Alfieri, Tavigliano, Randone, Pelagio Pelagi and others.
The Woodworkers' University officially ceased to exist in 1844, when Carlo Alberto
abolished all the guilds. Today, the Society of woodworkers, cabinet-makers and
coach builders of Turin, with its 248 members, is the spiritual heir to that University.
Its seat is still at Vicolo Santa Maria 7, where various relics are kept
and are on view to the public once a year on the occasion of the traditional feast,
March 19, in honour of Saint Joseph, the Patron Saint of carpenters.