Giusto Manetti Battiloro
Giusto Manetti Battiloro is a historic Florentine company that produces and sells gold leaf. Today it is led by the fifteenth generation of the Manetti family, who have been practicing the art of gold beating since 1600. The artisan workshop founded in the seventeenth century became a real company in 1820. The history of the company The Manetti family started the Battiloro business in 1600 when Matteo Manetti, son of Agostino Manetti, became a goldsmith, decorator and gilder. A pupil of Francesco di Jacopo da Empoli, he moved to Rome in the years in which the basilica of San Pietro was being built, and here he established himself as one of the most brilliant Italian artists. In 1602 he was recalled to Florence by the then architect of the Duomo Alessandro Bronzino Allori to restore the sphere of the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore destroyed by lightning. The work was completed in just a month and the Grand Duchy, in recognition of the excellent success of the restoration, appointed Matteo Manetti Goldsmith of the Opera, the first recognition to the Manetti family. Meanwhile, his cousin Paolo built the workshop in Florence and began working for the Medici family together