Visiting a Mosaic School outside Venice

Our energies and aspirations to ‘know’ a portion of Italy in too short a window of time was luckily informed and bolstered by our experiences in the region of small hamlets north of Venice.Thanks to our wonderful host and the lovely countryside surrounding Pordenone.



The region is a historic wonderland. It is a place to see villages almost entirely intact dating back a thousand years. There are towns filled with frescoes covering insides of churches and outsides of normal buildings. These are public art murals dating back 400-600 years!! People will be warm to your visit. In many places, they only get some regional tourists, maybe an Austrian bus tour or two, but not very much in terms of distant travelers (these people rarely leave Venice).



Our best find was one of the only two Mosaic schools in Italy. At the School Mosaicisti del Friuli, Spilimbergo, Italy, Students come from around the world to spend three years studying the Mosaic arts. The school itself is basically a museum of sculpture and mosaic arts right down to floors and walls which were created, designed, installed by students and staff. Types of Mosaics on display range from historic reconstruction, to portraiture, to abstract and contemporary arts. A visit to this venerable institution will likely broaden your appreciation for craft arts and sculpture, for trades and guilds, for public art, and for a general respect which the arts are given in Europe.

Try and visit while classes are in session to meet some of the students. Their dedication, craft, and work ethic will amaze you. It is a place of living history supporting the crafting of art - modern, contemporary, restorative, public.