Going to the shop to have something to eat and then become the divine artist. It is the story of Michelangiolo Buonarroti who arrived at the age of thirteen at Domenico Ghirlandaio, who in turn left the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio where Luca Signorelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli and Perugino trained. Raffaello Sanzio even invented art multiples by hiring a group of apprentices to reproduce his creations. When we boast of being the second largest manufacturing company in Europe, we forget that what we call industry is largely an evolution of craftsmanship that starts from the Etruscans and continues down the centuries up to us.
Giacomo Becattini, a Florentine economist who studied the districts together with Giorgio Fuà, knew this very well and explained how the vocation of the territories is the key to the Italian miracle. Globalization has overwhelmed these ideas and yet Italy remains attached to its workshops. Even if the crisis hits hard. There are one million and 450 thousand artisan businesses left, we have lost – records the CGIA of Mestre – around 410 thousand in ten years. Yet a possible recovery is largely entrusted to them. Giulio Sapelli – former professor of economic history at the University of Milan – explains that after Covid, after deglobalization, after conflicts «we are in an economy of survival and only small and medium-sized enterprises will save us, which are the true protagonists of the circular economy”. He is the president of the Manlio and Maria Letizia Germozzi foundation named after the action of the first representative of the artisans, Manlio Germozzi born in Corridonia, in the province of Macerata. He founded the artisans’ association in 1946: there was reconstruction to carry out, there was a job to invent. Many workers expelled from the war industry opened shops and the Italy of the economic miracle was made by hand! Confartigianato celebrated three quarters of a century of existence this year. Sapelli explains further: «Artisan businesses are founded on the natural society of the family and on relationships between people, thanks to which the machine networks and money flows are controlled. They continue, unlike large companies, to live and continually invent new lives: a life of continuous resilience and new achievements. The reason for all this lies in the history, not of businesses or the abstract economy, but of the existence of the peoples of the entire world.”
Is it possible that the small is the antidote to the economic clash between the United States and China, where Europe seems to be moving towards the role of supporting actor? The president of Confartigianato Marco Granelli is convinced of this: «We represent 700 thousand companies, the craft industry as a whole employs 2.6 million workers and we cannot find manpower. We must ensure that young people return to seeing artisan work as a real opportunity, also in economic terms and personal gratification. Today’s craftsman knows how to combine tradition, innovation, manual skills and digitalisation and is not a species in danger of extinction, on the contrary, we are among the true ambassadors of Made in Italy”.
Yet there are difficulties. Credit, production costs, especially the tax burden which weighs too much even if progress has been made with the new laws on apprenticeships, with the ITS school system which trains young people with new skills. Hope comes from young people, partially certified by Censis in its latest “artisan radar” published last June. Those under 35 – writes Censis – are looking for a good job which is not just a salary, but also a favorable environment, stability, creative stimulus. «From this point of view, being a craftsman is a good job». Because there is still a strong component of humanization of both tasks and relationships. It is no coincidence that Confartigianato has launched the slogan “artisan intelligence” as opposed to “the idolatry of artificial intelligence”.
81.8 percent of young people would like to have their own business, business or professional practice. For a third of these – Censis still certifies – it is a project for which they are already ready to invest and take risks. And here it is necessary to work to encourage the new business: the flat tax, facilitated access to credit, de-bureaucratization are the first necessary measures. But the research institute warns that craftsmanship is also a possible response to the NEET phenomenon (young people who do not study or work) given that three out of four of those who do not have a specific qualification would be willing “to go to the workshop ». Why? The answer lies in the high regard that artisan work receives: quality, tradition, talent and skill, creativity and Italian spirit are the values that younger people recognize in these companies with percentages ranging from one half to one third of the sample. The answers to why they would take a job in this sector are encouraging. 85 percent say because it enhances individual abilities and frees creativity, 72.3 percent because it gives a sense of entrepreneurship, 67.9 believe that being a craftsman gives freedom because «there is no master to whom you have to answer” and 59 percent maintain that artisan work environments are more humane and have better relationships. And the pay? It doesn’t seem like the first of the requirements.
Yet there are dozens and dozens of professions in danger of extinction. The list was drawn up by the Cgia, the Association of artisans and small businesses of Mestre: leather workers, suitcase makers, bag makers, carpenters, straw workers, bricklayers, carpenters, tinsmiths, body shop workers, car mechanics, welders, armourers, watch repairers, dental technicians, typographers, offset printers, bookbinders, radio and TV repairers, electricians, electromechanics, weaving and knitwear workers, tailors, mattress makers, upholsterers, painters, plasterers, scaffolders, parquet workers and floor installers. All sectors where the demand for labor is very high and employment is assured, but the apprentice is unknown.
Maybe that’s where we need to work to try to create a bridge between supply and demand. Of course theappeal craftsmanship tries to give it to itself. It is launching activities such as “art-tourism”, i.e. transforming the shops into places where those who come on a pleasure visit go to have experiences by integrating the work, for example of a carpenter, with the discovery of places. A strategy that Giacomo Becattini who wrote about it would have liked very much The awareness of places as an explanation of the economic phenomenon. And how can we forget that Carlo Collodi’s masterpiece, Pinocchiodoes it start from the creative dream of the carpenter Geppetto? Just as it is impossible to walk along Ponte Vecchio in Florence and not feel that it lives because the goldsmiths’ shops resist. The beauty of Italy is handmade.
