EVERY DAY HAS A SILVER LINING

Palermo is a city with obvious traces of its ancient Phoenician past, but it also shows evidence of its Jewish, Norman, and Arab medieval guild economy. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the streets and quarters named after their inhabitants’ professions and the clustering of trades within small areas of the city.

For example, Via Calderai (coppersmiths) is still home to metalworkers and boilermakers. Via Lamponelli (lamp) was once home to lantern makers, as was Via Cartari (carta means paper) for paper makers. Even without street names, you soon realize that you go to Piazza San Domenico for jewelry, or to Dicesa dei Giudici for baby clothes and carriages, or to Via Biciclettai for a bicycle. And if it’s silver you’re after, you go to Piazza Meli.

Entrance to Piazza Meli

Meli doesn’t mean silver, but apple trees, so there must have been some there at one time. Today there is just (“just!”) a single Magnolide gigante that towers over the courtyard, shading and obscuring the silversmiths at work.

Magnolide gigante

My husband and I recently went to Argenteria Amato Antonino at Piazza Meli 6 for a gift. I found the sterling silver present I wanted, which was priced by weight, and I asked the young woman who waited on us if it could be engraved with the text I’d brought with me.

Edvige Puleo, Engraver

Of course it could, and while we waited no less! She whisked my gift away to begin her work, and the owner of the workshop, Signore Amato himself, came out of his “No Admittance” area in a royal blue lab coat to ask if we’d like to see what goes on in the back. Of course we would!

He ushered us through the door and into a large open workspace where our engraver was busily working on my gift. Sitting at the workbench next to her was Signore Amato’s nephew, who was embossing a silver vessel with a hammer.

Engraver and Embosser at Work

Signore Amato led us into a room off the workshop devoted to articles used in religious ceremonies, such as monstrances, chalices, crucifixes, plates for the Host, thuribles (metal censers suspended by chains and used to burn incense during church services), and other articles that are beyond the reckoning of this lapsed Catholic. (Quick note on thurible swinging: three double swings for the Most Blessed Sacrament or when displaying a relic; two double swings only at the beginning of the Mass, after incensing the altar; and one single swing to incense the altar. There’s a religious protocol for everything!) In any case, a whole lotta swinging silver in those display cases!

Sacred Silver

Signore Amato then wandered off to another part of the workshop, gesturing for us to follow. This room had a small anteroom containing the furnace, now powered by gas but in former times by charcoal. This is where the silver ingots are heated to a molten state in a tungsten vessel with a higher melt temperature. He showed us his tongs and other tools of the trade used to handle this boiling metal. I didn’t see any drops of silver on the concrete floor, so he must be pretty good at this after 52 years. His grandfather started silversmithing in this very same space, he said.

Furnace Room

The rest of the room was filled with very large, very heavy, green and yellow machinery. Signore Amato cut off a piece from a sheet of brass and then fed it into an oiled press.

The Press

He turned the wheel, the piece of sheet metal engaged, and out it rolled in a much reduced thickness.

The back of the workroom was filled with wooden shelving holding male and female molds for ex-votos. Excerpted from Wikipedia:

An ex-voto is an offering given in fulfillment of a vow (hence the Latin term, short for ex voto suscepto, "from the vow made") or in gratitude or devotion. Ex-votos are placed in a church or chapel and can take a wide variety of forms. They are not only intended for the helping figure, but also as a testimony to later visitors of the received help. As such they may include symbols such as a painted or modeled reproduction of a miraculously healed body part, or a directly related item such as a crutch given by a person formerly lame. There are places where a very old tradition of depositing ex-votos existed, such as Abydos in ancient Egypt.

Ex-Voto Molds

Male and Female Ex-Voto Mold for a Heart

In another side room was a peg board holding hammers and other tools first used by Signore Amato’s grandfather and still used today.

Grandfather’s Tools

Heading back to the sales room, we were shown various newspaper articles, certificates, and awards for the commissions Argenteria Amato Antonino had won, complete with photos of Pope Benedict XVI and the Bishop of Palermo. Signore Amato was obviously and rightfully very proud of his work.

And although the shop is hidden away in a secret courtyard, obscured by a giant magnolia, it isn’t lacking for customers. I was there three times and each time, I waited to be served while someone chose a gift in silver for a christening, or dropped off a silver napkin holder to be repaired, or browsed silver anniversary gifts. The guild tradition is very much alive and well in Piazza Meli, and I feel very lucky to have gotten a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the art of Signore Antonino Amato, silversmith.