Narrator: Italy-- with its rich landscapes, culture, and cuisine, this country has long enchanted all who set foot here, but this moment finds it without crowds... or visitors.... offering spectacles without spectators... and yet, somehow, as busy as ever... especially away from the grand public spaces, in kitchens... To beef or not to beef... Narrator: and historic workshops all through the country.

Here against incredible odds, master artisans carry on age-old traditions, sometimes a near final link between past and present.

We use this machine invented by Leonardo da Vinci.

Sometimes, I make a mistake like this... disaster.

Narrator: The legacy of prior generations courses through their veins... My family work the glass since 1650.

Narrator: More than a job, they have a calling, a passion.

Man: You can only do this job with love.

Narrator: To see this work up close is a rare opportunity... an intimate chance to watch stories unfold at the fingertips... Like a little heart.

Narrator: of those protecting a treasured heritage.

Woman: Every single community has to preserve his history.

♪ Narrator: Just north of Venice, the island of Murano is the glass-making capital of the world.

♪ Hey!

Davide's family has been making glass here in Murano for 11 generations.

Davide: My family work the glass since 1630, 1650.

♪ Narrator: Starting as an apprentice 6 decades ago, Davide first learned to work with glass from his grandfather.

♪ [Speaking Italian] Today, he has taken his skills to the highest level and creates breathtaking sculptures in glass.

♪ The twelfth generation now works alongside their father.

♪ Man: For sure he's my father, but in the same time, I think one of the best maestro that you can find now.

I'm super lucky on that.

I love him.

Ha ha ha!

Lo amo.

♪ Today's creation is something only a maestro could envision.

Davide: I saw a picture about an African woman.

She take the water, and she have the vase on the head, and this movement... capture my imagination.

Narrator: He'll use multiple types, textures, and colors of glass to create his own vision of that image.

The glass becomes too hard if it cools, so it must stay in constant motion to retain its shape... and kept hot, typically between 1,500 and 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

♪ ♪ A glassmaker's workshop is loud.

Verbal cues would leave you hoarse by the end of the day, so they plan as much as they can in advance and use clanks and bangs to let each other know what they want.

[Whistles] ♪ Davide, voice-over: With my son, I don't need to talk.

They know what I want.

♪ Narrator: With the separate pieces of the glass now shaped, Davide is ready to put them together.

♪ He uses a historic technique called incalmo.

In the Venetian dialect, this means "graft."

[Whistles] Hey!

Rock 'n' roll!

♪ Narrator: The openings of the two pieces must line up precisely.

Otherwise, they won't join properly.

♪ [Davide speaking Italian] Centrifugal force helps stretch the glass evenly, prepping it for the last stages.

♪ Davide and Marco rely on the same techniques glassmakers in Murano have used since 1291.

♪ Davide, voice-over: The glass is a challenge every time, every time.

Narrator: In the early days of glassmaking, artisans were moved to Murano and forbidden to leave the island.

Some say it was to protect Venice from the fires that burned here day and night.

Others say it was to protect their secrets, which were passed from one generation to the next.

[Speaking Italian] ♪ Grande!

♪ Narrator: As the sculpture comes together, Davide adds just enough heat to be able to shape the glass into its final form.

[Speaking Italian] ♪ Hey!

♪ Our heart is pushing always.

♪ It's something really difficult to explain.

♪ Narrator: Finally, the finished piece is rushed into a special oven.

This will cool the sculpture slowly.

Otherwise, it will shatter, and they'd have to start all over again.

♪ I am very happy when the piece is finished.

Narrator: With Marco by his side, Davide has finished another master work.

♪ Davide: When I am finished it's a... [Sighs] Ha ha ha!

♪ Narrator: Masks--they've been a part of the cultural fabric here since at least the twelfth century.

♪ That's when Venice celebrated its first Carnival, a citywide celebration that marks the period before Lent.

♪ Stefano is a papier-mache mask maker.

What I am doing now is the construction of the mask with the paper.

♪ Narrator: Classic Venetian masks were made this way as long as 500 years ago... Look my brush.

Is very--is terrible, huh?

Narrator: and in that time, the process has hardly changed at all.

Stefano starts with a mold made of resin.

♪ Stefano: A very important detail of it is that every material we use is non-toxic.

Remember that the mask is used on the face.

Ha ha ha!

♪ Narrator: Layer by layer, Stefano adds pieces of wet paper covered with glue.

♪ Although this way of Venetian mask-making goes back for centuries, it was nearly a lost art.

♪ When Napoleon conquered Venice in 1797, he banned Carnival and the masks people wore to help put off a potential rebellion, and Mussolini banned the celebrations again in the 1930s.

♪ Until the late 1970s, the festival was mostly forgotten and so were its signature hand-made masks.

Then a small group of artisans began to teach themselves this ancient tradition.

♪ Stefano: I have done it 40 years, and now my hand read the detail.

♪ The attention and the repetition give the technique.

♪ Narrator: When the mask is done, Stefano gives it a few finishing touches.

♪ You see that the anatomy is perfect.

♪ Narrator: After the papier-mache mask dries, Stefano's sister Manuela helps add some personal style.

Working with Manuela, Stefano's wife Eliana paints the masks.

♪ She's always looking for new ways to make their masks stand out... like using 24-karat gold leaf.

♪ Stefano: Remember that when you buy some art, you buy a piece of life of somebody.

Not only for the time, not only for the technique, and not only for the vision, the idea, but it's fluid, it's an energy, and this is important.

♪ Narrator: South of Venice, the Emilia-Romagna region is quintessential Italy.

It includes Modena, the home of balsamic vinegar and luxury sports car production... and Bologna, a medieval city with the oldest university in Europe.

In Emilia-Romagna, like other parts of Italy, the splendor of its artisans is magnified when viewed through the lens of history.

♪ It's 1633 in Italy.

Galileo is on trial in Rome.

The country is recovering from the Plague... ♪ and in Santarcangelo di Romagna, a fabric printing shop opens its doors.

♪ Today, this stamperia produces heirloom quality printed cloth, using centuries-old tools and techniques.

♪ ♪ ♪ Narrator: Working with his son Gabriele and daughter Lara, Alfonso begins by spooling the fine fabric.

It must be prepared for printing.

♪ That job is done with a machine that is the last of its kind on Earth.

♪ It's a mangle-- or mangano in Italian.

♪ The family says the origins of its design date back more than 2,000 years to the Greek engineer Philo of Byzantium.

♪ This nearly 500-year-old mangle was built after its design got an upgrade from one of the most famous minds in history.

♪ Narrator: It was set to be destroyed after World War II until 12-year-old Alfonso stepped in and pleaded with his grandfather to keep it.

♪ The Marchi family powers it themselves.

♪ The giant stone stretches and presses the fabric.

The result-- fabric as smooth as paper.

♪ The family has more than 2,000 stamp designs.

♪ Those worn by time are painstakingly re-created using Old-World techniques.

♪ And finally, paint is spread and gathered on the stamp.

Then printing begins.

♪ This paint the family uses is made from a secret recipe that dates back to the year 600 B.C.

♪ It takes hours to print a large tablecloth.

♪ ♪ After the fabric dries, the color is fixed, and the piece makes one more trip through the mangle.

♪ ♪ Tablecloths like these are woven in rural homes.

Because families could not afford embroidery, printing was added for special occasions.

♪ Today, cloth like this is popular throughout Italy because it's strong enough to use every day and enduring enough to pass from generation to generation.

♪ ♪ The story of Italy can't be told without including food.

Each city offers unique regional delights, but's Bologna that many call Italy's culinary capital.

♪ Some of the world's most beloved dishes originated here.

♪ What's behind them?

Extraordinarily fresh, high-quality ingredients, simple recipes that let flavors shine, and sometimes, a bit of divine inspiration.

♪ Venus--the mythical goddess of love, beauty, and desire.

So enchanting was this deity that local lore in Bologna says the mere sight of her navel prompted an innkeeper to re-create it from pasta.

The result--legend says-- Was tortellini.

OK. ♪ Today in Bologna, a different kind of passion fuels those who handcraft this beloved stuffed pasta.

♪ I'm Monica.

I'm Dani.

And we are sfogline in Bologna.

Ha ha ha!

Narrator: "Sfogline" is a title these sisters wear with joy and pride.

Ahh.

Narrator: It marks them as master pasta makers, culinary artisans carrying on Bologna's tradition of fresh pasta made with eggs.

Monica: We're having our 25th year inside the shop.

Luckily, nothing terrible happened yet.

Ha ha ha!

♪ Narrator: So how did pasta become the culinary trademark of Italy?

It's thought the food arrived with the Arab invasion of Sicily in the 9th century, but by the 1600s, it had spread far and wide, thanks in part to simple machines that could make it.

♪ Italians of all social classes recognized what everybody loves about pasta even now-- it's delicious, affordable, and easy to store.

♪ Today, the sisters are making tortellini's larger cousin tortelloni.

♪ Please, can you start with flour, double zero.

It's a special flour.

Yes.

So this is very fine.

Normally is 100 gram of flour and one eggs, medium eggs.

Egg.

Egg.

And the yolks is very yellow because chicken eat only corn.

♪ Narrator: Rolling begins with a small pin.

It's a job Monica first learned from her grandmother at age 6.

So as you can see, thanks to my belly-- ha ha ha--I succeed in making this very thin because the dough should be the envelope of what you see inside and you will taste after.

♪ Narrator: But when you live and work with your sister, there's always a second set of eyes.

Ohh.

Tsk.

♪ Not bad... Every day I write the book.

♪ Narrator: Each family in Bologna has its own recipe for the magic in this simple delight.

And these are the filling of tortelloni.

This is the filling of tortelloni.

OK.

Sorry.

Made with ricotta cheese, parsley, Parmigiano-Reggiano 36 months old, salt, and nutmeg.

♪ Narrator: With a special cutting wheel, the gold dough starts to become tortelloni.

I am the best.

Pbbt!

♪ Because I am perfect.

No comment.

Heh heh.

Narrator: The silky texture comes from the ricotta, made with only cows' milk.

This is very special because it's like a cream.

Sometimes, the dough could be just a little dry, So we need water like this, to keep it moist.

Narrator: Thin but strong, the pasta stretches over the filling into a triangle.

♪ Like a little heart.

♪ OK, our tortelloni.

♪ Narrator: To Enzo Bonafè, the handmade luxury shoes that bear his name are more than footwear.

♪ They are a promise fulfilled.

Man: My father was born in Bologna city center, in Old Town in 1935.

Then when the war started, Bologna became a very dangerous place to be, so to escape the bomb, he moved to the mountains.

♪ When he found himself there, he had to walk barefoot because his family was in a situation of extreme poverty.

He had pain, and he promised himself to make the most beautiful shoes in the world.

♪ Narrator: In 1963, Enzo and his wife Guerrina dared to make good on his dream, starting a line of handmade shoes.

♪ Today, it's a family business that includes son Massimo, wife Guerrina, Enzo, daughter Silvia, and now granddaughter Benedetta.

♪ First Guerrina's skilled hands draw a model, or pattern.

♪ The pattern is then cut onto fine leather.

Massimo: We look for the best materials all over the world.

♪ Benedetta: I love working with my family.

♪ ♪ Massimo: So to make one pair of our shoes, we take about 4 weeks average.

Normally, we need from 300 to 350 different operations.

There are some big steps that we can sum.

♪ Narrator: The luxury leather is sewn together to create a flat seam.

The rest of the process uses a last, the molded form of a foot.

Leather is nestled around the last and secured in a special machine.

♪ Enzo is one of only two people in the shop with the special skill to flatten the seams and strengthen the leather.

Massimo: This is not a job for him.

This is his passion.

♪ Narrator: To sole the shoe, first a strip of leather is sewn around the bottom of the insole, an old-world process called welting.

♪ The outsole is then secured to the welt.

♪ Then, the sole and heel are sanded to ensure a good connection with glue.

♪ As they are prepared for boxing, it's not only the shoes that shine, but also their makers.

Massimo: Italian shoe culture has very old roots.

♪ In Bologna, there used to be a lot of good producers.

♪ Unfortunately, during the end of the last century, many, many factory closed.

What we do here is keeping the tradition alive.

This is what my parents taught us.

♪ It's the only way that we know to produce shoes, so we cannot change.

♪ Umbria, in the heart of Italy, pulses with independence and pride.

Here, artisans carry on traditions ranging from delicate to large scale... ♪ and although Umbria is home to Assisi-- and its famed Saint Francis-- friction between the Catholic Church uniquely contributed to much of this region's craftsmanship.

♪ I'm Marta Cucchia.

I'm a weaver from Perugia.

Narrator: Perugia, the hill-topped capital of Umbria, lies almost halfway between Florence and Rome.

It was Italy's center for textiles dating from the Middle Ages, a market town especially famous for its Perugian tablecloth.

♪ At that time, Perugia had been relatively independent of the pope and in the 16th century rebelled against the Holy See's efforts to control it through taxes on salt.

♪ To punish the city, the pope banned textile production for commercial purposes, pushing Perugia further into self-sufficiency.

When the ban was eventually lifted, commercial work resumed... ♪ but the invention of mechanized looms during the industrial revolution almost brought an end to these sacred and beautiful textiles.

♪ ♪ Her great-grandmother opened the shop in 1921, but when Marta's mother decided to close it, 23-year-old Marta wouldn't hear of it.

♪ Today, she and her apprentice run one of the last hand-weaving studios in Italy.

♪ Marta: Now I'm making the warp.

The warp is the base of every kind of fabric, the vertical threads, and we are using in this studio the warping machine invented by Leonardo da Vinci.

♪ I have to be really careful because sometimes I make a mistake like this, and this is a real tragedy because if I jump one turn around this machine, this group of threads is shorter than 5 meters.

Disaster.

Then we have to undo everything, yeah.

Narrator: She carefully removes the finished warp and braids it to keep the individual strings organized.

Then, it goes to the loom.

♪ Marta: Now I'm using my oldest loom.

This loom works with 4 harnesses.

Then I control the harnesses with my feet with the pedals, and I open the warp with my feet.

For every different position of the pedals, I have a different opening of the warp, and in this opening, I send the shuttle with a bobbin inside.

♪ Narrator: After thousands of moves of the shuttle and warp, the result will look something like this.

♪ A pillow might take 3 days to weave.

A tablecloth can take up to two weeks.

♪ Marta: Keep alive this traditional work is important because it's a part of our local community and culture, and then it's not only for me or for Umbria.

Every single community has to preserve his history.

♪ This work is my passion.

My life is not the life of Marta.

Marta is a part of the studio like a loom.

♪ Narrator: For centuries, the town of Deruta has made the most of its precious natural resource--clay.

♪ I'm Giorgio Moretti.

I'm the owner of the company very famous for production of hand-painted ceramics.

♪ Narrator: Since the turn of the 14th century, Deruta artisans have created stunning glazed pottery called majolica, typically using a white, tin-based glaze.

Less than two centuries later, they perfected a more brilliant version called lusterware.

Giorgio: Deruta is a very famous village.

The clay that we use for making these vases is found here in the Tiber River.

♪ Narrator: For the past 100 years, Giorgio's family has carried on the tradition.

♪ He and his sister Camilla are the third generation.

♪ Taking their cues from 15th and 16th century Renaissance traditions, Giorgio and his 12 artisans revisit classic forms for modern tastes.

♪ Giorgio: We make the shape on the wheel manually.

♪ Narrator: The art of ceramic goes back at least 30,000 years.

♪ The potter's wheel came to Italy sometime before 1500 as the Middle Ages gave way to the Renaissance.

♪ The process of going from clay to majolica takes at least 5 steps.

♪ At any step along the way from shaping to firing to carrying the piece to and from the kiln, disaster could strike.

Giorgio: When we have the shapes ready and dry, we make the first firing at about 1,000 centigrade.

♪ The unglazed fired pieces are called terracotta, "cooked earth."

♪ Giorgio: Then the plain terracotta is dipped in a glaze for glazing process.

♪ Narrator: The white tin glaze, which forms a canvas for the bright, painted design to come, typifies early majolica pottery.

♪ The piece is ready for the most crucial step, painting.

♪ Vanessa Municchi has been working here for 5 years.

♪ Vanessa transfers the traditional designs onto the pottery.

The design is drawn on duster paper, then perforated along its outline with a fine needle.

She lays the perforated paper on the vessel and beats it with a bag of charcoal dust, transferring the drawing.

♪ The colors that go into the kiln are not the colors that come out.

That's the art and the magic of majolica.

♪ Two firings is typical, but when precious metals such as gold, silver, and platinum are used, it could take up to 10.

♪ ♪ Giorgio: Now our challenge is to keep this tradition alive and to continue working in the same quality, the same tradition without changing the history that we receive from the ancient time, but try to be contemporary for the market.

♪ ♪ Tuscany with its crown jewel, Florence, is the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance.

♪ Both home and muse to artists like da Vinci and Michelangelo, the long artistic tradition here can be seen in soaring cathedrals... and iconic images inspired by breathtaking landscapes, but some of Tuscany's most gifted artists are masters in another medium, one you can see only on your plate.

♪ Dario Cecchini is sometimes called the most famous butcher in the world.

With a personality as big as a T-bone steak, it can be easy to see why.

To beef or not to beef... ♪ Although Dario comes from a long line of butchers, he almost took a very different path.

As a young man, he decided to walk away the family business and become a veterinarian.

Then his father got sick, and Dario came back to his small hometown of Panzano in Chianti and returned to the family butcher shop to support his younger sister and grandmother.

He's been here ever since.

As someone with a deep love for animals, Dario brings a unique point of view to being a butcher.

♪ Dario uses cuts of meat that others might overlook.

♪ Although he has several restaurants here in Panzano, he doesn't lean on fancy recipes, just the taste of the meat itself.

♪ As Dario's fame as a butcher has grown, he's had the chance to travel and feed people worldwide, but he vows that he'll never leave his hometown behind.

♪ [Bells tolling] [Fire burning] [Tapping] The goldsmithing tradition in Tuscany goes back to the Etruscan age and was very popular during the Renaissance.

In those days, fine pieces of jewelry were collected and highly prized as worthy of admiration as the works of painters, sculptors, and architects.

♪ During the Renaissance, the Medicis, who created their own bank, were avid collectors of gold pieces and even created a goldsmith and jeweler's row on the Ponte Vecchio, a famous bridge in Florence.

I'm Paolo Penko.

I'm a goldsmith in Florence, and this is Furino.

♪ Paolo picked up the art of being a goldsmith from his father, but he also took his craft to the next level by studying at a local art institute.

That's when he first laid eyes on his wife and creative partner Beatrice.

Brothers Alessandro and Riccardo have been working in the shop since they were old enough to walk, and their interest in making jewelry grew naturally out of watching their parents work.

♪ Riccardo's work has gotten more polished since then.

Today, he works side by side with his parents and his brother, making pieces that even the Medicis would envy.

It all starts with a base of gold, and then they add anything from diamonds to rubies, topaz to turquoise to create visions of opulence that evoke the Italy of old.

Today, they are making a necklace based on "La Primavera," a painting from legendary Florentine artist Sandro Botticelli.

♪ ♪ They start by heating a piece of gold plate.

♪ They warm it up and then cool it off quickly, which makes the gold easy to shape.

When the gold is thin enough, they start to etch in the pattern.

Riccardo: It creates a beautiful texture on our jewel.

Narrator: These thin pieces of gold can easily tear or become misshapen, so any wrong move can mean redoing hours of work.

Next, they separate the gold into different parts and hammer them out to shape them even further.

Riccardo: Last, we combine all the pieces, and we put the stone on the jewel... and then we polish it, and the jewel is finished.

Narrator: The final result serves as a bridge between Tuscany's legendary past and its present.

♪ Riccardo: Of course, I'm very proud to continue this tradition, the tradition of my father and of my grandfather, and I feel very lucky to do something that I love.

♪ Narrator: With palm trees and brilliant sunshine drenching limestone architecture, Puglia enjoys a southernly situated spot on Italy's heel.

♪ This region produces 40% of Italy's olive oil... ♪ which is more than 10% of that in the whole world.

♪ As in much of Italy, natural resources and history have greatly shaped the unique artistry and architecture of this region.

♪ In the southern part of Puglia, iconic stone houses rise from the dusty landscape.

Topped with limestone domes, the structures, known as trulli, look like something from a fairy tale and have stood shoulder to shoulder for centuries.

♪ I am Domenico Romano.

I am a maestro trullaro in Alberobello in Puglia.

♪ ♪ ♪ Narrator: The earliest trulli were built by peasants, who hauled nearby limestone to make these primitive but elegant-looking homes.

The knowledge of how to fortify them against weather and time has been passed down from one generation to the next.

♪ With the old trullo masters dying out, Domenico vowed to do his part to help protect these architectural wonders.

♪ Today, Domenico is restoring the roof of a classic trullo.

All he needs is a hammer and his own two hands.

The rooftops of trulli are built from close-fitting pieces of limestone.

No mortar or glue required.

♪ Legend has it the trulli were built to be pulled down whenever tax collectors came to town.

Today, Domenico's job is to make sure they keep standing tall, reminders of their glorious history.

♪ ♪ In the northwest corner of Italy, Liguria, called the Italian Riviera, is an enchanting string of colorful coastal towns.

♪ The capital city of Genoa includes a modern, sprawling trade port that has long been one of the most important in Europe.

♪ Steps away, history is everywhere.

♪ Genoa's blend of all things traditional and contemporary is embraced uniquely by one family of artisans.

♪ This is fine silk.

The border cashmere.

♪ They are two of the world's finest fabrics... ♪ so when the Ghignone family of clothiers first put a spray gun to this cloth, it made shockwaves, even in fashion forward Italy.

♪ Today, their signature dye-painted cashmere sells in 33 countries... ♪ the proud product of 3 generations working together.

Now you can see the scarf completely open.

Narrator: Matriarch Lia started the company in the 1950s after getting married and discovering homemaking was not for her.

She got a job using a knitting machine and then went out on her own.

Woman: And she created a company which grew through the years with the entrance of the second generation, my mother and my uncle.

Narrator: And they transitioned to using luxury cashmere.

♪ Fiorella: Cashmere is a fiber which comes from the cashmere goat.

Best one is in Mongolia.

♪ Narrator: It's thought that Marco Polo learned about cashmere when he visited Mongolia in the 1200s... ♪ but Europe didn't begin trading for it until the 18th century.

Woman: Genoa has always been a cashmere district.

This is because Genoa's waters have a special density, are particularly hard, and this makes cashmere especially soft.

♪ Narrator: Today, they're weaving their signature scarves, using their state-of-the-art machines.

Woman: This is an artisan company, but we believe in technology and innovation a lot.

They are very modern machines, but the basics are the same as they were more than 70 years ago when the company was started by my grandmother.

♪ Narrator: Each knitted piece goes straight to quality control.

♪ Giulia: We come to this luminous table, and we go over it with a magnifying glass.

OK.

Perfect.

♪ Narrator: It's Lia's artistic son Mirko who first dared to paint these fabrics with dye.

♪ He and his wife use different techniques, including hand-coloring... OK. Narrator: rolling... ♪ and spraying.

♪ Woman: It's an unlimited opportunity to express yourself, so that's the best thing you can do in your life, I think.

[Speaking Italian] narrator: As fashion evolves, one thing doesn't seem to change-- Grandma or Nonna Lia.

Giulia : Something that we say here is that the cashmere dust is what keeps everyone looking nice and young, and you see Nonna Lia.

She's 93.

She does not necessarily look that age.

♪ ♪ Narrator: Italy--it is a country of larger-than-life mystique created by many stories, and it's artisans who are and will continue to be the master storytellers... ♪ Revealing Italy's history through determined brushstrokes... purposeful taps... and quiet determination.

Their work is history preserved.

Marta: It's a part of our local community.

Narrator: Family legacies carried forward...

I love him.

Ha ha ha!

Narrator: and resilience come to life.

Massimo: He promised himself to make the most beautiful shoes in the world.

Narrator: Few things so deeply represent personal passion and cultural pride.

The art of creating is in the Italian soul, a soul that reveals itself each time something is made with love.

♪