2023 Quarta Caffè Calendar

Ancient crafts

The 2023 Quarta Caffè calendar evokes ancient crafts, part of our tradition and historical identity through the narration of photographic images.

Globalization has helped to forget our traditions, Quarta Caffè, in line with its mission, wants to recall the value of ancient crafts enclosed in our cultural heritage.

In the details of the photographic shots, expert hands transform stone, clay, papier-mâché, rushes, linen threads and semolina dough into a one-of-a-kind artifact which therefore gives life to our Apulian popular culture. Leaving all this behind, would be to forget our origins.

It is the story of excellence that tells of atavistic symbols, such as the rampant cockerel portrayed on ceramic artefacts, a representative icon of the God Mercury, called to protect the family and ward off negativity. Tradition of craftsmanship are the orecchiette of durum wheat semolina from Tavoliere delle Puglie, with a concave shape inspired by the stone roofs of the Trulli. More delicate processes, such as warping, the first operation for the armor of a loom, in which a skein of perfectly ordered threads is created on which to weave the weft. And yet the weaving of the pots that give life to the "artisanal traps" for fishing, made in rush fiber, a natural material with no impact on the marine ecosystem. To then move on to the processing of Lecce stone, which spread thanks to the skill of the stonemasons, capable of selecting, cutting and modeling - already in the quarry - the limestone with decisive blows of the ax from the basic shape up to the finished product. To finish then with the ancient papier-mâché technique, created to decorate the Baroque altars of Lecce and lighten the weight of the statues of saints in procession.

We leave these testimonies "of the manual art of other times" to the reader, to remember and spread with us.