As handy with a violin as a paintbrush, it’s hard to find a more striking talent than Leonardo Frigo. The Italian-born, London-based Globemaker, musician and artist sat down with us to tell the stories of his inspiration and heritage, and how these stories come to be painted on handmade globes.
Hailing from the Asiago region of Italy, Leo originally trained as an art restorer in Venice and in the timeless art of printmaking. “I learned how to print from metals, the traditional way,” he explains, eager to share the heritage of his craft. Combining his passion for the violin, which he studied meticulously for five years, with his expertise in art restoration, Leo started his ambitious journey of telling stories in a vivid new way, painting using a nib and black ink onto string instruments. Capturing Italy’s rich heritage alongside the grand narratives of world history, his projects have included Seven Deadly Sins, Quattro Stagioni, The Olive Branch and the Celestial Globe.
It was this final symbol — of fortune, the heavens and providence’s influences — that led to Leo’s iconic painted globes, uniting his passions in perfect painted spheres. When inspiration struck, it appeared divine. Leo stumbled upon the writings of Vincenzo Coronelli, a priest, printer and globemaker from Venice. In Epitome Cosmografica, written in 1693, Coronelli meticulously documents his studies and lessons in the art of globe-making.
“There are globes all over Europe, in lots of places,” Leo explains, “but especially in Italy.” It was the innate beauty of the pieces celebrating both the terrestrial and celestial that drew Leo to the painted globes. Using the teachings of Coronelli, Leo meticulously studied the seventeenth-century tradition: how to mix the pigment, how to print the maps, how to develop the glues, and varnish the finished product. “I recreated everything from him and his book," he recalls, “I went back over his diaries, I was so lucky to find it and translate it from the Venetian dialect into Italian.”
The local aspect was crucial to the process: “For me, it’s important to share and keep alive the traditions from my place, Venice, and my village, in Asiago.” Famed for its creamy cheese with a light nutty taste, the small village near the Dolomites was linked to Venice through the tradition of building boats for the Palace. This in turn, was where Coronelli found the resin for his globe making, a tradition that Leo is proud to continue. Leo studied the trees that the resin was originally derived from, thrilled to discover that they grew in his village. “I have to keep the traditions alive,” he impresses: "so I started making in the same way." It was fortuitous, perhaps even fateful, that it was Leo who found Epitome Cosmografica; "I was very very lucky to find it," he agrees, "and to know how to etch, and to print, and have the passion for it."
Keeping the heritage of Italy alive, Leo is now building a globe inspired by famed author Dante Alighieri. First came Leo's The Dante’s Inferno Project , comprising 34 string instruments, 33 violins and one cello, each hand-painted with the names and people of Dante's The Divine Comedy. This has now evolved into Leo's Dante’s Globe: “I was thinking about how to make purgatory and heaven, and I didn’t want to paint another sixty-six violins,” Leo laughs. Describing the globe, he explains how “it’s a large globe that I’m building now, a thirteenth-century map inspired by The Divine Comedy and all the places Dante mentioned, the towns, the rivers, the regions.” Leo is animated in describing the project — which includes a large sculpture (“it’s enormous!”), and nine two-metre brass rings, each symbolising the rings of Paradise and Heaven, Saturn and Mars.
Will it be his favourite work? “I’m not sure if I have a favourite one, it’s complicated” he muses. “I’m creating it now, I hope this will be the favourite!”
Leo is clearly a creative force to be reckoned with. But how does it translate into his personal style? “I have to say that I’m not creative at all about my clothing” he confides — “I always wear a black tee shirt and jeans, it’s like my uniform.” Practical in his outlook, Leo finds that the all-black ensemble is the best thing for a long day in the studio, where “it gets dusty!”
Leo doesn’t need flamboyant clothes to do the talking. Like our own SIRPLUS staples, his work, and the immense history and heritage it represents, speaks for itself. For Leo, quality aligns with creativity, and Vincenzo Coronelli's Epitome Cosmografica is at the heart of it: “It’s very important to pass on — it arrived to me after three hundred years.” After being meticulously cared for across the centuries, Leo hopes that future generations will do the same “as an artist and craftsman, I feel that traditions can’t be left behind. They can't just be locked in a room — they won’t be discovered that way.” As inspired by the past as he is by the future, Leo’s work and creativity are an indelible legacy and a part of history we should all be proud to share.