Episode 3, Memoria

Maestros of the Riviera - Fratelli Levaggi

This season, through our Maestros of the Riviera series, we’re stepping outside our doors to celebrate the people who keep our coastal heritage alive.

Much of what defines your stay at the Miramare begins in workshops along the Ligurian coast where local artisans spend lifetimes mastering a single craft. This season, our mini-series Maestros of the Riviera takes you directly inside their tucked-away ateliers.

For episode three, we travel a few kilometers down the coast to the Bottega of Fratelli Levaggi where Paolo and Gabriele Levaggi safeguard a third-generation family trade, building chairs that rely on raw timber, ancient glue, and manual skill.

watch the full episode

“We still follow Descalzi’s exact method,” says Paolo Levaggi. “But our work doesn't start at a workbench. It begins in the wild forests behind our house."

The brothers head into the Ligurian hinterland to hand-select wild beech, cherry, and ash trees. They watch the seasons and the phases of the moon before making a single cut. 

This local timber is knotty, narrow, and stubborn - far more difficult to work with than uniform imported lumber - but it possesses a density and natural elasticity that allows the finished pieces to bend under weight without ever snapping.

Once cut, the trunk goes straight to the Levaggi lumberyard.

"We never considered mass production," Gabriele notes. "An automated machine cannot read the grain of a cherry tree or tell you when a piece of ash is ready to be shaped.”

In a modern factory, raw timber is dried in industrial kilns over a weekend. In the Levaggi lumberyard, the boards are left to weather in the open air. Nature handles the dehydration.

Depending on the thickness of the cut, the wood sits outside for two to five years. This long seasoning allows the internal fibers to shift and settle, hardening the timber so the joints won’t warp decades down the line.

“Of course, this is not a low-cost choice,” says Paolo, "but we believe that it is a fundamental guarantee of quality and authenticity.”

Only when the wood is dry do the brothers bring it into the workshop. They cut the pieces using historic templates, then refine the curves by hand with scrapers until every structural imperfection disappears. 

When it comes to assembly, there are no metal screws. The joints are calibrated one by one and bound together using hot animal glue - the same organic compound used by medieval artisans.

The true test of a Chiavarina is the seat.

Using thin strands of imported Indonesian rush, a weaver works directly onto the completed wooden frame. Moving with quick, mechanical confidence, they pull the rush into a tight warp and weft pattern. The tension of the fibers acts as a final structural tie, pulling the legs together and locking the framework into place.

The result is a strange physical contradiction: a chair that weighs nearly nothing yet stands up to generations of daily use.

“Form and function blend together in this chair,” adds Paolo. “Its aesthetic - so light, so elegant - is a direct consequence of its structure. A structure thought out down to the smallest detail, where there is no element that could be defined as superfluous.”

Before a chair leaves the bench, the final phase of polishing deepens the natural character of the timber while hardening the frame against the humid sea air of the coast. Rather than masking the wood under a heavy glaze, the polishing process relies on patience to bring out a soft, resilient finish that grows more personal with age.

The partnership between our house and Fratelli Levaggi comes down to a shared stubbornness. We both believe that quality simply requires time, human hands, and an absolute refusal to rush.

“We love molding and giving new life to every single element in our chairs,” says Paolo. “Evaluating the quality of the wood, knowing how to read the natural grain, enhancing its peculiarities… These are all stages that we are not willing to outsource to a heartless automated process.”

Here, here.

Fratelli Levaggi’s Chiavarine chairs are a symbol of all we value: craft and care shaped by patience, place, and people.