For centuries, the artisans of Volterra, Italy, worked alabaster in a tight-knit community, valuing brotherhood, quick wits, and fierce independence. Velio of Volterra is one of them, a master craftsman and one of the last of a dying breed.
Through Velio's stories, wisdom, and distinctly Volterran sense of humor, readers gain insight into the world of the artisans. Often from poor families, the alabaster artisans form their own group within the already regionalized Italian culture. Theirs is a society that values intelligence, creativity, and, often, an irreverent defiance of authority. Many, like Velio's own father, opposed Mussolini and fascism, joining the resistance to fight the WWII German occupation of Italy. The same streak of defiant independence can still be found in Velio.
Strongly bound by tradition and culture though they are, the continued existence of the Volterran artisans is in question, their numbers dwindling in the face of mass production. Velio is one of the last true alabaster master craftsmen.
A moving memoir and history of a vanishing culture, Velio of Volterra offers Velio's own stories supplemented by pictures of craftsmen from the early 1900s and of Velio, as he struggles to pass traditions of art and life on to the next generation.
About the Author: Sarah Stever completed her doctoral research for the University of Michigan in Florence, Italy. Since 1987 she has taught art history in Volterra as a professor in the University of Detroit Mercy summer program, where Velio taught sculpture.
She has listened to his stories for more than twenty years-stories that comprise this account, along with her photographs and interviews with other artisans.
