This family make gold leaf by hand. Are they the last to do so?

Venetian Marina Menegazzo is the only beater of the precious metal in Europe to use time-old methods. Mass production has taken over the trade, forcing his peers to close.

Berta Battiloro, a family business that uses traditional methods to produce the finest possible gold leaf for architectural restoration and many other applications, is one of the last of its kind in the world.

Ronan O’Connell

Aug 24, 2022 – 9.47am

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Marino Menegazzo swings an eight kilogram hammer in his Venice workshop thousands of times a week. It slams into a packet containing small squares of gold, mere millimetres from his fingers.

This is an antiquated and dangerous method, which is why the 68-year-old is reputedly the last master gold-beater in Europe who uses it. But it also produces a type of gold leaf which cannot be replicated by the factories that now dominate this ancient trade.