- Some 6,000 years ago, people discovered something that captured our eye and captivated our imaginations.

Gold.

And behind me, atop the most famous building in Florence, the Duomo, is a big ball of gold.

And when it fell down during a thunderstorm, hit the ground, and needed to be conserved, the choice again was, you bet it, gold.

The finest in all of the land.

And that gold is made right here in the City of Florence.

So I've traveled across the oceans for another adventure.

(lighthearted music) (leaves rustling) I'm Julian Baumgartner.

As a fine art conservator over the past two decades, working to preserve artworks, I've been fortunate enough to meet and work with some of the most talented, driven, and interesting people in the arts.

And now I want to take you into their worlds to meet them, hear their stories, and share their passions.

So join me as we go behind the canvas.

(lighthearted music) Just outside Florence, in the quiet town of Campi Bisenzio, there's a place where history glimmers, literally.

This is Giusto Manetti Battiloro, a family-run company that has been crafting gold leaf for over 400 years.

Our guide today is Diego Ciottoli.

He's here to show us how a chunk of raw gold is transformed into something light enough to float on air, yet rich enough to outlast empires.

- First of all, thank you for being here.

It's a pleasure for us.

- Oh, it's my pleasure, really.

- Thank you.

- As everything in our company, also our packaging as a long history, like 200-years history, more or less.

Start from the box we used to sell in the 19th century, and later, we start to change our logo while our company be awarded with the medal for the quality of the leaf during the national exposition.

So in the 19th century, in 1861, 1881, and 1884, we achieved this three award, and our logo changed with these three medals.

- I see, so it went from just having the name and a picture of Florence, to having the three awards.

- In 1946, Italy became a republic.

So, if you had the something close to the kings, the monarchy, it wasn't good.

There was like a cancel culture period.

And if you watch the logo now, you don't read the name of king.

You just read Italia, Torino, Milano.

- I see.

I see.

So, kind of camouflaging a period that maybe we don't want to remember so much.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, well, it's beautiful, and I recognize this perfectly.

These are the booklets that I receive in my studio when I order Manetti leaf.

And you know, for every one of my clients and everybody who sees these, they instantly recognize the quality of the product, and as I'm learning the quality of the company.

So this really tells us a story, and sets the stage for what I'm hoping we're going to go see next, which is the actual production of the- - Yeah, sure.

Okay, well, lead the way.

All right, Diego, tell me where are we?

This looks like a workshop.

- Yeah, now we are in one of the most secret part of our company.

So you are really lucky to be here.

- I'm feeling really lucky.

- We would love to show you everything, but we can just show you some little part of this part.

- You don't trust me.

- No.

(laughs) Of course, I trust you, but we have secrets comes from a 15th generation that are still here, and we have to preserve them for other 15th generation.

- I completely understand.

And again, thank you for even letting us here.

So, we are in, it's noisy, it's loud, there's machinery, it's hot.

What happens here?

- Here we have like a 30 different color of gold.

And now we decide which kind of color we are going to work with.

- And that's decided by the alloys that get mixed with the gold, correct?

- Sure, we are in the fusion stage.

- Of fusion, right.

- Yeah.

So, now we put gold with other metals for having the color we need.

For example, if you put silver, you are going to have a gold that is whiter.

If you use a copper, you have a rosier gold.

- So that's what's happening here in this room.

- Yeah, now we are going to work with a 24-carat gold.

So it's pure gold.

And we are in the phase of alloy.

So, we have to put the gold at more than 1,000 degrees to be assured that it is clean at the maximum weight.

- So all of the impurities are burned off.

And what's left is just pure 24-carat gold.

- Yeah.

Sure.

- Wow.

So the purest gold in the world.

- Yeah.

(laughs) - So this is a furnace, I take.

- Yeah.

- And what is he doing now?

He's stirring it?

- He is moving the alloy inside because we have to separate the atoms inside the alloy.

He does this operation for be sure that the impurity are moving from the atoms or to the surface.

- I see.

- He put the alloy, the mold.

- Well, I can feel the heat radiating off it.

Wow.

- Watch it.

This is the origin of everything.

- It is liquid gold pouring out of that.

- Yeah, it's liquid.

- Wow.

What's happening there?

- Now, it's happening that the impurity that are in the ingot bar are going upper of this mold.

And the color is changing because it's taking this kind of impurity.

- And so, how long has he been doing this job?

- Francesco does this work, sir, from 26 years until now.

- Wow.

- So he is not an artisan.

He's a professor of this work.

- Ah, I love that.

He's a professor.

And I would imagine it takes a lot of experience.

- Yeah, it looks like easy to put something in a 1,000 degrees and see what happens.

But you need experience to understand what's happening inside.

- Well, anytime it looks easy, it's not.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

It's cool.

- Now, Francesco is going to work with our ingots.

- So, the gold is now, it's black.

It doesn't look impressive at all.

Where'd the gold go?

- Yeah, all the impurity we have in the ingot bar, we buy from a bank which are certified for non-conflict gold.

- So they sell you gold, but it's actually gold plus some impurities and- - Yeah, but we allow, again, for giving him much puritiness.

- [Julian] I see.

So one step above.

- Yeah, one level high.

And during this process, you have also sometimes some machinery like- - Oil or grease or something.

- Yeah, some different impuritiness.

So, it's not just about the alloy.

It's also about the proxy you use for.

- I see.

- So we have to do this stage for cleaning the gold at the best way for start all the next machinery works.

- Right, 'cause if you want perfect coming out, you have to start with perfect going in.

- [Diego] Yeah.

- [Julian] So once the impurities are beat out, then we have this.

- Yeah.

- And this is... - This is the ingot where we start for all the next phases.

Lamination, bing, cutting... And it looks like a little small not so big.

And you feel like it is not weight.

- Oh, this is really heavy.

(laughs) This is just solid 24-carat gold.

- This is a one kilo and 300 grams.

So it's around 100,000 euros in just your hand.

- So this is like 125, 150,000 US dollars?

- Yeah.

More or less.

- This is a very nice vacation.

- Yeah, it's really cool, the vacation.

So this is now ready for the next process, right?

- Yeah, it's quite ready.

And at the end, maybe we will have 20,000 leaf with it.

20,000 leaves from this one piece.

- Yeah.

More or less.

- Okay, so how do we- - Depends on, of course, from format, thickness.

- Right, right, some subtle variations.

So how do you go from this one piece to 20,000 facets?

- Now we have to see the other step.

- Well, then let's go, I want to see, awesome.

Standing here feels like a privilege.

This room, this process is normally hidden from outsiders by design.

The techniques used here have been guarded for centuries, passed down through generations, perfected in silence.

(gentle music) The journey begins with a solid gold bar, the ingot, cast and ready.

From there, it's rolled into a thick ribbon, still far too heavy for gold leaf, yet becoming more malleable with every transition.

(gentle music) But this stage isn't just about shaping the metal.

It's about refining it, aligning the atomic structure, and smoothing out imperfections.

The ribbon becomes the foundation for the leaf, preparing the gold to stretch, shimmer, and ultimately, become something extraordinary.

And then it gets cut down into smaller, manageable pieces and that's where we're headed.

- The gold beating phase.

- Ah, I see.

So we transitioned from the purification and preparation, and now we go into what Manetti has done so well for so many years.

- And here, you cannot see everything.

- Yeah, of course.

- But you can be a gold beater for one day.

- All right.

(machinery humming) - So, Julian, now we are in the gold beating phase.

- Okay, so this is the gold beating area.

This is where we turn the cut ribbon into the leaf.

- Yeah, correct.

- So how does that happen?

- That happened also because we have Luca that will have in this stage.

Luca will show us the manually stage.

Because the 95% of this stage is done by machine, but the final part- - It has to be done by hand.

- Yeah, only by hand.

- So a master craft- - Because you have to feel also the leaf during the beating.

Yeah, and it is the last step we call (speaks in foreign language) - Okay.

I don't know what that means.

It's an Italian name.

So you have to do like the final effect only by a hand.

- Ah, I see, right, okay, that's cool.

And so prior to the invention of the machines, the beating process was all done by hand.

- Yeah, and it was a long process because you have to do just with your force, your power.

And it need a man with a- - Yeah, so strength.

- Also a body can- - So did the gold beaters have one arm that was huge, and one arm that was- - Yeah.

- Really?

- It was the classic gold beater I had.

- Really?

Then they walk around?

Oh, that's very cool.

Okay.

So what am I seeing here?

It looks like a massive piece of stone.

- Yeah, this stone it's like a century-old stone.

We used also in the other plant we had before I moving in this plant in 2012.

And it is a stone that is selected for a giving a hammer beat.

So it's the gold beater stone of this.

- So, just not any stone.

It has to be a specific type- - Yeah, it's selected.

- Gotcha, and that's for strength and predictability.

- Elasticity also, because- - Oh, yeah, the- Yes.

- Right, I didn't think about that, something too brittle would crack under the weight and the pressure, okay.

- So now, before I show you everything, I want to let you try this hammer.

Try to take it.

- Okay.

(machinery humming) Oh, ooh, how much does this weigh?

Eight kilos.

And so a gold beater would swing this all day long.

- Yeah.

Once was in the weight.

- Oh my God.

- And now it does, but just for some beginners, hour per day, not the labor day.

- Oh my God.

That is eight kilos.

That is very, very heavy.

- When we did the gold beating phase, everything by hand, the first hammer was this one for beating.

And later, you add the other one for the final phase.

- Oh, okay, so this is the beginner's hammer?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

So what are these?

- Now, I show you.

Inside this, you can find the little pieces of ribbon you have prepared before.

They are put together, separating one by one in a plastic papers.

- And these are special plastics that for purity, again, you don't want to transmit anything.

- Yeah, sure, yeah.

- Okay.

And then you make a big bundle, and then you beat it?

- Yeah.

Now we are going to beat it.

- Okay.

- So let's see, look at how it does work.

- I'll get out of your way.

(hammer slams) - And now, you see that the leaf, it's different.

- Oh yeah.

- [Diego] It's stretched there.

And it has the (indistinct) So it can go to the next step, which is the cutting phase.

- And so he will look at this and it's his expertise that knows when it's ready.

- Yeah.

- Right.

- Luca understands the power, also the energy of the mold when he is beating it.

- Right, so it's not just- - No, no, no.

He has this capability to understand when and where the leaf needed the beating phase.

- Ah, so maybe a little bit more here.

A little bit less here.

I see, I see, and this is something that you learn years, huh?

- Actually, 25 years.

- Wow.

- For being a gold beater, you need to be part of this school for two years.

So just two years, trying to understand.

- Oh, I see, so- - After two years, you can start to work with.

And now Luca has 25 years of experience.

So, here we have another professor that can teach to other people this work.

You can't read it on a book.

- Right, right, not in a video, not in a lecture, right, right.

- Okay, so now, we are going to do this stage.

- Okay, oh, I have to do this one?

- No.

If you want.

- I want to.

- Okay.

- So this mold goes on there, and then do I have to use the big hammer or the little hammer?

- No, the big hammer.

- Oh, I got to use the big hammer.

Yeah, sure.

- And you're going to get on video of me (indistinct) - Yeah.

(laughs) - Thank you.

Thanks a lot, okay.

- Your first day in the gold beating training.

- All right, so fingers here away from the surface.

- With the fingers you take the mold.

- Yep.

- And- - Just kind of move it a little bit.

- With the hammer, you beat it.

And as (indistinct) is your first day, me and Luca move to the other corner.

(Julian laughs) See you later.

- You don't trust me.

Good luck.

- Okay.

(laughs) All right.

(loudly breathing) (hammer tapping) This is hard.

It's hard to get a rhythm and keep it in control.

Not to mention, I have no idea what I'm doing to the gold in here.

(hammer tapping) All right, I need a break.

- Yeah, sure.

- You felt that eight kilos?

- Yeah.

- Bounce back.

- Yeah.

- So if you do with the kinetic energies, it is not the weight as you thought.

- Oh, so it's easier to- - It's lighter than- - The rhythm.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

Well, let me try that again.

(hammer tapping) Oh, feel it.

Yeah, no, that makes a big difference.

(hammer tapping) I'm still not going to be able to lift my arm tonight, but... (hammer tapping) So how long do I have to do this to beat the gold to the appropriate thinness?

- Usually one minute if you are an expert.

- Oh, really?

- Yeah, yeah, because it's the final touch.

It's like the maestro touch.

- Ah, I see, so prior to the machines, how long would I have to beat this by hand?

(machinery humming) - Four hours.

- Four hours.

All?

And you do this four hours for this, wow.

Okay, so now I'm done beating this.

We have gold leaf in here, but it doesn't look like the leaves that I'm used to getting from Manetti.

So we have to cut it.

Is that right?

- Yeah, right.

The wonderful fact is that this thickness you are used to work with, just the shape is different because from the little square, now the leaf has become bigger and bigger, and now we have to clean it.

- So this, aside from not being cut to the format, that's ready to use.

- Yeah, should be, yeah.

But I mean we cut it for clean it, and give you the best quality because in the next stage, as I will show you, we will check the leaf one by one during the cutting phase.

- Oh, so quality control.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Right.

Okay.

(lighthearted music) - So, today is your lucky day because after the school of beating up, you have the school of cutting.

And as you can see, the cutting phase starts from the mold that you have beat it.

So now Paula is taking the mold you had before.

And he's cutting it in the square format.

In this way, she can control the quality, and at the same time, give you the formats you need.

- So what she's doing is taking the large piece of leaf that had just come from the beading phase, and cutting it down into a more manageable, preferred size.

At the same time, she's maybe editing out the stuff that if there's a little wrinkle, she cuts away from it, and gets a perfect square that goes into the booklet, and then all of this extra leaf gets caught in the container here and here, and then that will get recycled into another round of leaf.

So I know how delicate gold leaf is when I'm doing gilding.

And the speed with which she's moving is unbelievable.

- Yeah.

- And I have... We've been here a couple minutes, and not a single tear, not a single wrinkle.

It's just like perfection every single time.

- With the breath, she can control the leaf at the best.

- Yeah, I'm noticing there's no fans, there's no moving air.

It's very still in here.

Because otherwise, the leaf would move around.

So now, the tools that I'm seeing, these are particular tools.

What are these called?

- The cutting phase is done with the cardeto, which is a special cut leaf.

- [Julian] Cardeto.

And this can be adjusted depending on the format.

- Yeah, sure, and also it depends from the alloy, too.

- Oh, so different blades, different- - Yeah, you have always to be on size for all the alloys.

- Okay, so what's this pad that this gray- - This is the pad like the Gilder's pad.

- Oh, it's just a larger one of the Gilder's pad, I see.

- And now, if you are ready, you can try to do one cut.

- Okay, so I'm now in the school of cutting.

Hopefully, I'll get a passing grade.

(Diego laughs) Okay, so I sit down here.

- Okay.

- Okay.

- You have your own booklet, so we can understand the- - How bad I do?

- Your quality how to do this work.

- Okay.

- Right to hand it?

- Oh, this one.

- Okay.

This one.

- This one.

- Perfect, yeah.

Yeah.

(Paula speaking in foreign language) - All the way, yeah.

(Paula speaking in foreign language) - And now braid it in the central part.

- Perfect.

- Okay?

Great.

Aah.

(Paula speaking in foreign language) Braid it.

- Okay.

- Oh.

(Paula speaking in foreign language) - Yeah.

(Paula speaking in foreign language) Oh, ah, yeah.

Oh, I see.

Yeah.

(Paula speaking in foreign language) - Look inside, yeah, oh, I see.

- Okay (speaks in foreign language) - And then.

(Paula speaking in foreign language) - No, no.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

(speaks in foreign language) - Yeah, break it.

(Paula speaking in foreign language) - No, you have to use the neath, oh, I see.

- Okay.

(speaks in foreign language) - You got it.

- Phew.

(Paula laughs) - Uh, ah.

- Oi yoi yoi.

Oi.

(Paula laughs) (Paula speaking in foreign language) - Okay.

- Mm, uh-huh.

- B, C, D?

- I think we have to recycle you.

- Oh, (laughs) well, thank you very much.

This is unbelievable how difficult that is, and how amazing it is how fast they are, okay.

- And you have a background, you are a gilder.

- Yeah.

- And for you it's not new.

- This is not new to me, and I'm still, I think I give myself a D+.

- Yeah, D+.

Okay.

- Thanks.

Also C. Also C.

- Oh, okay, thank you.

Okay.

Wow, that is very impressive.

Every time I handle a leaf, I will remember this moment of just how difficult it is to get it in there and perfect.

And I will remember that every single time I... My gilder's tip goes down.

It's remarkable.

- Yeah.

- I would imagine just like everything, everyone here has got years of experience, because you know, first day, everything goes wrong.

- Yeah, sure.

- How, what's the collective- - No, Paola is the professor.

- Okay.

- And she has now the students here that are improving their quality.

Of course, the quality is an eye level now, but we have more classes.

- So when you start, do you start with a different leaf, or do you start with maybe silver leaf?

- When they start from the first level, they start from the higher level of thickness because you can manage better the leaf.

- I see.

- Or you can start from the silver leaf, for example.

- Thinner and more refined, pure gold is more fragile.

Right, so what was this that I was handling?

- Now we have carts at 23 carats.

- Oh, God, so you give me the hardest thing?

- No, it's not the hardest.

- Okay.

- But at 14 grams per 1,000 leaves.

So, it's quite, not the highest level of the class.

Yeah, pretty cool.

- So you threw me right into the deep end.

- Yeah.

- Nothing easy.

- We had to see if you had the talent for doing.

- So do I get a job?

- Yeah, yeah.

You can have another shot for this.

(both laughing) - [Julian] - We watch as the gold leaf is carefully cut into perfect squares, layered between sheets of paper, each one weightless, delicate, and fragile.

But before any of it leaves this building, there's one final stop, quality control.

Every single leaf is inspected by hand, ensuring that centuries of tradition and precision are carried through in every piece.

- When there is something as a leaf that is not perfect, they remove it, and they substitute with the perfect one.

- Right.

So I recognize these books.

When I get any leaf, I get them, and they're perfect.

Every leaf is perfect, none are folded, none are torn.

And that's really important to me when I work with the leaf.

And so, this is where our professors are making sure that me, as the final user, get the absolute best.

- And just to give you an idea, we produce like millions of leaf.

- 20 million a year, something like that.

- So, this kind of quality control is down for million of leaf.

- Wow.

- You need to be really, really good in this job.

- Well, so that leaf that she just pulled out, that looked fine to me.

- To you?

- Yeah.

- To you, but not for us.

- Can you show me what imperfection would be removed?

- Sure, for example, this leaf is not perfect as you could see at the first size.

- Ah, right, so just this little thing here is enough to disqualify the whole leaf.

- Yeah.

- This one?

- [Julian] That little bit here, that's enough.

And you say the whole leaf, it gets recycled, but this is not going to be usable.

- No, and as you can see, this is very little.

- Tiny.

- Tiny.

- Yeah.

- And me and you couldn't see it in one moment.

- And we get fired.

Yeah.

(laughs) - They'd send us back to the hammer part.

(laughs) But that matters because if this leaf makes it to the gilder, when they gild with it, and then burnish it, that will be- - Yeah, I mean, when we want to give a high-quality product, we don't want to give it just in torquing.

In communication.

- Yeah.

- We want to give it really in the best way.

And as you can see, it's not the easiest work of the board because you have to be concentrate every time for each stages.

So it is a long process.

- Yeah, well, in the ingot stage, you're working with molten gold.

If you're not focused, you could burn yourself or start a fire.

In the beading stage, you could lose a finger.

And here you could miss a tiny little error, and all of those would get transmitted to the product and to the customer.

And so removing those is quintessentially what Manetti is striving for.

- Yeah.

We have another step for quality control.

This step is about the weight.

So we sell gold leaf in grams.

So now we are going to check if the weight of the leaf is correct.

- Oh, I see, right.

And this looks like a pretty fancy scale.

I'd imagine that to weigh these tiny little leaves, it has to be very highly calibrated.

- Yeah.

If you want to touch it.

I show you that you have to be careful with your hands.

Yeah, yeah, take it, no problem.

- Okay.

So if I... Oh, yeah, that's gets like I say.

So you have the wood and then... (machinery humming) So even if it gets kind of folded up, it can be salvaged.

- Yeah, I mean, if you are good as Monica is.

- Right.

(laughs) Not me.

This one goes into the trash.

And so, that one can go back in, I see.

- [Diego] Now the machine for the weight is calibrating the perfect weight because we have a thickness that is too much short, and also a little piece of hair can change something.

- Wow.

- It's so sensitive.

- Yeah.

- If you put the mosquito inside, it can change the- - Well, sure, yeah, absolutely.

I had no idea that there was so much control that goes into this.

I had no idea that you weighed them, and did double inspections, but it makes sense.

- If everything is correct, the lot is correct, we go to the next phase.

That is the one that we saw before, the visibility check control.

- I see.

And so this one passed.

- Yeah.

- We are all good.

This one is ready to be quality controlled, and then packaged, and sent to my studio.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

(Diego speaks in foreign language) Thank you.

(speaker speaks in foreign language) From the gilded domes of capitals, the artworks that capture our imagination, even the tiled floor beneath our feet, Manetti Gold Leaf finds its way into every corner of life.

With over 30 shades and alloys from deep rose gold to luminous platinum, Manetti Leaf has become an indispensable part of art and life.

This isn't just metal.

It's culture, creativity, and centuries of mastery captured in every leaf.

(lighthearted music) (lighthearted music continues)