Since 1791, in the heart of Lucca

ancient and precious Art and its artisans.

The silversmiths workshop

The workshop has been operating in Lucca since 1791, when silversmith Giovanni Battista Bastiani was granted by the Mint commissioners of the Most Serene Republic of Lucca the licence to practise such craft according to the statute of the ‘Register of Goldsmiths and Silversmiths’.

Since then, the workshop has come to life through the ancient and precious art of its artisans who, over the years, have succeeded in preserving and enhancing it: the Bastianis first, then the Favillas and, from the 1950s, the Giovacchinis (Nello and then his son Cesare).


Spatially, the workshop is located within the arborato cerchio (the tree-lined walls surrounding the city of Lucca), inside the very first defensive walls of Roman origin.

The silversmiths work in a hall on the ground floor of a house dating back to the Medieval period. Its façade overlooks the square on the back of the cathedral of Lucca, San Martino, with the Archdiocesan offices on the left.

The position of the workshop adjacent to the Archdiocese suggests the nature of its activity: here, artisans work mainly on religious pieces in silver, restoring them or creating new ones.