Davide Medri featured in Mestieri d’Arte & Design
Davide Medri selected by Homo Faber of the Michelangelo Foundation
1 August 2025
Davide Medri is featured in the new issue of Mestieri d'Arte & Design – Crafts Culture, the biannual magazine of the Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d'Arte, which dedicates an extensive feature to him titled "The Man Who Fragments Light", with photographs by Ezio Manciucca. The piece is part of the issue titled Islands of Light and is also available online on the magazine's website.
The magazine
Mestieri d'Arte & Design – Crafts Culture is the biannual publication of the Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d'Arte, a longstanding reference point for telling the story of Italian and international fine craftsmanship, design and the applied arts. Through features, interviews and in-depth pieces, the magazine gives voice to master craftsmen, ateliers and new generations of artist-artisans who bring together manual skill, material and contemporary research. The issue Islands of Light, in particular, explores the relationship between material, light and transparency through the work of several protagonists of contemporary mosaic and glass art.
Pages from the feature published in Mestieri d'Arte & Design (September 2026)
The feature on Davide Medri
The piece, written by journalist Luca Bergamin, traces the artistic and spiritual journey of Davide Medri, from his training between the Accademia di Belle Arti in Ravenna and the Gino Severini Mosaic Institute to his decisive encounter with designer Bruno Rainaldi. Starting from the lesson of the Byzantine mosaics of Galla Placidia, the piece follows Medri's personal exploration of the mirror as a living, ever-changing material: from sculptural mirror frames to the renowned Narciso tables, from sculptures in iron and mirror and glass tesserae — including the work "Stone", portrayed against the brick architecture that forms the backdrop of the feature — to jewellery in bronze and silver and large watercolours with gold leaf.
A journey Medri himself describes as an inquiry into light, reflection and perception, in which the fragment becomes an instrument of contemplation:
"I consider it a divine entity, a means of communication between God and man."
Born 59 years ago, Davide Medri lives and works in San Carlo, in the Cesena countryside, in a restored old mill that serves as both home and studio — the setting in which the feature portrays him at work among mirrors, light and material.
Original article: "L'uomo che frammenta la luce", photographs by Ezio Manciucca — Mestieri d'Arte & Design, Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d'Arte.