THE WOAD MILL
FROM THE CHIERI TEXTILE MUSEUM TO THE PATCH
THE GUALDO GRINDER BY ARMANDO BRUNETTI:
IDENTITY AND MEMORY DYE BLUE
The Chierese Foundation for Textiles and the Textile Museum has donated to the City of Chieri the Gualdo grinder received as a bequest from its promoter, Armando Brunetti (1934-2015).
Entrepreneur, scholar and eclectic collector, Armando Brunetti had the two stone components of his gualdo millstone made on the basis of well-known models, so that even in Chieri – as well as in Castelnuovo Scrivia and other places in Umbria and the Marches – the memory of the processing of the Isatis tinctoria plant, used to dye fabrics in blue: the fresh leaves of the gualdo, in fact, were reduced to a paste, then fermented to obtain the blue dye and modeled into coccagne to be dried in the sun and reduced to powder for the dyers.
In 2020 the Foundation had joined the redevelopment initiative of the ex-Mosso area in PaTCh (ParcoTessileChierese) both in sharing the objectives of the Municipality of Chieri and to implement its statutory purposes - first of all the enhancement of the Textile Museum and annex Orto Botanico del Tessile® in the monumental complex of Santa Chiara.
On the initiative of the President of the Melanie Zefferino Foundation, welcomed by the City Council and by the Mayor Alessandro Sicchiero (Resolution 116 of 06/07/2023), Armando Brunetti's dream comes true: the City of Chieri now boasts a landmark identity evocative of the history and culture linked to the many "shades" of textiles, which are certainly reflected in the Textile Museum, established in 1997.
The Macina da Gualdo was installed at the PaTCh: in addition to the two millstones, one of which with particular grooves, there is a wooden structural part designed by Prof. Arch. Clara Bertolini, creator of the Orto Botanico del Tessile® ( 2017), with the Arch. Mariangela Rossino. The material realization of the wooden structure of the millstone and its state-of-the-art installation was entrusted to Corneliu Lupu, a carpenter of Romanian origin but Chieri by adoption, who used special materials supplied by ILMA of Magliano Alpi (CN) and who made use of the collaboration of Fabrizio Rattalino for the movement and positioning of the millstone in situ, where a special brick base was built by the Municipality of Chieri, with the contribution of the Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation, based on a design by the architects Marco Maccagno and Cristina Cassavia. The latter also designed the corollary flowerbed of the gualdo millstone, where 100 Isatis tinctoria seedlings will be planted, born from the seeds of those flowering at the Orto Botanico del Tessile® thanks to the skilful care of Giulia Perin , an artist in permanent residence at the Textile Museum who has been collaborating with the Foundation for years also in the context of educational activities.
«With this gift to the City of Chieri, the Foundation strengthens its bond with the reference community by reaffirming its role as a cultural actor and renewing its over twenty-year commitment to promoting the culture of textiles - explains the President Melanie Zefferino - All this, looking at today, is to the past of its reference context and to a possible future in the name of sustainability of the creative textile industry, rediscovering but at the same time innovating ancient knowledge and secrets. First of all that of the "good gualdo" mentioned in the Statutes of the Fustian Art until the Indigofera tinctoria and then the artificial indigo of Baeyer (1870) caused the millstones of the so-called "blue gold" of Chieri to stop rotate. In the present, the gualdo mill generates memories, suggestions and attraction for the city itself, its museum and its textile park».
