With a name partly inspired by the composer Giuseppe Verdi, Verdiano Marzi might well have become a musician, but his love of design determined otherwise. The son of farmers from Ravenna, an important centre of Byzantine mosaic, Verdiano Marzi was admitted to the town's school of art at the age of just eleven. He became a master mosaicist in 1968, and joined the studio of Carlo Signorini, the son of Renato Signorini, a key figure among Italian mosaicists, who revolutionised the teaching of mosaic art. Signorini worked with the great artists of his time, such as Marc Chagall and Gino Severini. Severini was an Italian artist who first aligned himself with the Futurist movement and then moved through cubism to a neoclassical style. His ideas helped give birth to mosaic art as we know it today. Marzi's contact with Renato Signorini had an impact on his apprenticeship at the family studio in Ravenna, as he rubbed shoulders with this 'maestro of mosaic' on a daily basis for several years.
Verdiano Marzi left Italy in 1973 and moved to Paris, where he entered the fine arts scene. He was now twenty-three years of age and embarking on his chosen profession, with a burgeoning desire to reveal and communicate the beauty of mosaic and the secrets buried within glass and stone. These concealed treasures, which only come to light when these materials are broken up by the mosaicist, never fail to leave Marzi dazzled and dumbstruck, and he hopes to share this continuous feeling of wonderment with you through this book. By offering up his knowledge, Verdiano Marzi hopes to give you a greater understanding of mosaics and inspire you to create such works of art yourself.
