Marino Menegazzo

The Mario Berta Battiloro workshop represented a testament to a craft that has been practiced in Venice since it was introduced from Byzantium in the 11th century. Founded by Mario Berta in 1926, it was passed down to his daughter Sabrina and her husband, Marino Menegazzo. Along with their daughters, Eleonora and Sara, they have continued the ancient tradition of goldbeating, a meticulous and labor-intensive craft that transforms gold and other metals into ultra-thin sheets.

Nestled in a building once home to the Venetian painter Titian, the workshop is both a museum and a production space. Set within a walled garden, Marino’s lab is at the heart of the building, with cutting and packaging tasks taking place in a lamp-lit studio at the front. The goldbeating process begins with melting gold and shaping it into ingots, which are then rolled into thin sheets. The sheets are stacked and hammered in the first round. Marino then divides and stacks the sheets again before manually beating them with heavy hammers, ranging from 3 to 8 kilograms. This delicate process, which can last up to two hours per session, stretches the metal to extraordinary thinness.

The next stage, cutting and packaging, requires skilled hands and controlled breath to ensure the metal remains intact. The gold is then placed into special booklets for protection and organization, while any trimmings are melted for future use. The final product—gold so thin it almost seems ethereal—has been sought by artists, jewelers, and restorers and graced some of the world’s most iconic monuments, including St. Mark’s Basilica. 

After the permanent closure of the workshop, the family decided to transfer the machinery to the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of Science and Technology in Milan, hoping to preserve the memory of their craft and the history of gold leafing through time.