Today, I want to tell about the history of one among the most famous artisanal companies of Sicily, namely Finocchiaro. This company boasts a long history in the marble furniture in Sicily and abroad. The company was founded in 1932 by Finocchiaro Salvatore, a talented Sicilian artisan capable to create handcrafted tables, tiles, flooring and coloured lava stones. Finocchiaro was the first and unique company to discover the healthy properties of the lava stone coming from the magma of Mount Etna. Indeed, the company was on the slopes of the Sicilian volcano, in the delightful town of Fiumefreddo dI Sicilia, which is regarded as the gateway to reach Taormina.
In the 1960s, this company was managed by the son of the founder, namely Gerardo Finocchiaro, a passionate artisan who put his whole life and soul to engrave lava stone and marble obtained from the lava of Etna volcano. To create his beautiful and stunning marble furniture, Gerardo Finocchiaro used only his hands and the ones of his employed, namely 15 skilled Sicilian workers and 12 trainees. Why Finocchiaro marbles is so important for the history of Sicily? The answer is very simple: the company was founded in the 1930s, when Liberty style became known all over the world in the field of Art and Architecture.
This style, if you don’t know, is purely and clearly Sicilian, design, colours and texture of marble furniture are inimitable in Sicily when they are made from lava stone. The latter was created thanks to this company. Just think that after the earthquake in 1990, many Sicilian churches, hotels and buildings were renovated with marble by this company. The co-founder, Gerardo Finocchiaro also noticed the healthy properties of the stones obtained from lava basalt. These are real jewels which you can use to embellish your home or for your health. Indeed, only lava stone of Etna contains silicon, a mineral that blends at a high temperature and that can be found only at the bottom of the lava basalt. When the stream of lava goes out of Etna volcano and drops along the pathway of the slopes of mount Etna and dries, it forms basalt.
The basalt stone is very hard and compact. Inside it, just in the final bottom, there is silicon. Gerardo Finocchiaro cut this stone to find silicon in the bottom. At a high temperature, inside the lava stone, indeed, silicon shapes a spiral wire that when it is heated, has oscillations capable to reach your aching bones. For this reason, the stones by Finocchiaro has been used also by wellness centres, hotels and private customers. Unlike laser oscillations, a massage with hot stones from Etna has no side effects, but many benefits for your health.
The founder of Finocchiaro marble, Gerardo, explained the benefits of his hot stones, just during the years of his activity: “The massage with our hot stones reduces stress, tension and fatigue, induces vase expansion, improves metabolism and circulation, attenuates muscular tensions favoring the eliminations of toxins. It rebalances the flow of positive energies, neutralizes the negative energy restoring the tuning between body and mind. On a psychological level, it brings back sensations which recall the maternal warmth, and induces a state of pleasant abandonment. On an energetic level it induces a strong process of reactivation”.
The therapy made with these stones is also called Etna Therapy System. Indeed, these useful and valuable stones come from the bowels of Etna volcano, from uncontaminated lava which goes out of the bottom of the Earth. Worked in a laboratory one by one, these Sicilian stones maintain ancestral properties derived from age-old memories and are used for the body’s well-being but their properties exceed the curative. They really are stones to massage body, mind and spirit.
Today, the company has about 10,000 stones from Etna to start an effective stone therapy. Don’t trust about the stones extracted from rivers. They don’t contain the silicon spiral wire like the stones from Etna volcano and do not work. This company also produced marble surfaces for tables and paving for embellish your villa and home, both for indoor and outdoor furnishing. Finocchiaro was capable to merge style, health and beauty in a unique place, thanks to his charming and inimitable Sicilian products. To appreciate the long history of this company, I interviewed the widow of the founder, Rosa Sciacca, because the great, unforgettable and talented Gerardo Finocchiaro passed away in the past May, after a severe disease. The words of Rosa allowed me to remember the value of this courageous Sicilian entrepreneur and his hard work to bring the Sicilian marble from lava basalt to all over the world.
Who bought your products?
Our products were bought both from Italian, Sicilian and foreign customers. Our factory was 30 kms away from the military base of Sigonella. The American officers and soldiers often visited our warehouse and bought the surfaces in marbles for their tables. Strangely, even though we produced wrought iron columns for tables, they bought only the surfaces, namely the tops, because they wanted to obtain the columns from the wood of their trees in the US, to create a perfect combination of Sicilian and American style.
What are the features of your products?
They are high quality products, the texture is compact, hard and well refinished only manually, with no machines. The structure of our marble furniture has been engraved manually. My husband engraved marble , by creating the so called tail swallow slot (ammucciatura a coda di rondine). This kind of joint, which serves to mount the several parts of marble furniture, is obtained by an oblique cutting to the sides of the marble table. Only made like this, lava basalt table is compact and unable to be detached. This feature guarantees a long duration of furniture and a hard, smooth and scratch proof surface. Furthermore, thanks to the methods my husband used, style and design of our marble furniture can overcome the scheme of the epochs for being matched in any styles, both ancient and modern.
Where is today your showroom?
Our current showroom has been relocated to Piedimonte Etneo, another beautiful town on the slopes of Mount Etna near Fiumefreddo di Sicilia, in the province of Catania. If foreign tourists want to visit this showroom, I’ll be very happy to introduce them the stunning creation of my loved husband. He also created the blazon of King Frederick II, a perfect blazon like the one dating back to the XIV century.
Surely, Finocchiaro is the most brilliant symbol of Sicilian manufacture. If you want to visit this company during your vacation to Sicily, admire their products and bring some of them to your home, please send me a message.
Photocredit for Fiumefreddo beach: Luigi Strano from Flickr.
Rosalba Mancuso is a freelance journalist born in Sicily. Passionate about her loved island and with extensive writing experience, Rosalba worked as a contributor to the main Sicily’s newspapers and as a bilingual Italian – English writer. Thanks to her skills, she also founded four websites in English. On Sicilyonweb, Rosalba tells every corner of her beloved Sicily. Furthermore, she writes this blog thanks to your help. Rosalba, in fact, earns a small commission, with no cost for you, when you book your travel or buy products through the affiliate widgets or links you find in her posts.
Awesome story. Makes me proud of to know another Sicilian was a man of vision.
Many thanks Angelo for appreciating my story about this courageous Sicilian entrepreneur.