Life Path

I was 13 years old when I began attending the Mario D’Aleo Art Institute in Monreale.
I still remember the wonder I felt during a classroom demonstration, led by several teachers including Lillo Gambino. He managed to model a boot in the plastic classroom using only the board: we fired it and then decorated it with glaze.
It was at that moment that I realized mosaic and ceramics would become my life’s path.

Our Journey

Working with glazes, gold, and marble during lab hours made me understand the value and importance of what I was studying.
I began attending mosaic and ceramic workshops, collaborating with local masters, experiencing how fire, clay, colors, and glass could merge into a single harmony inside a blazing kiln.

I remember when my brother Saverio would come to visit me in those workshops: we did nothing but experiment, applying mosaic and glass onto ceramics, trying to prevent them from detaching or burning.
We also participated in the restoration of the stained glass windows of Palazzo Venezia, the mosaic of the Colombiadi, and my first year of Architecture. I later completed my studies at the Michelangelo Academy in Agrigento.

A life dedicated to research and training, which today continues with passion.

A Boundary Between Man and Spirituality

I was 20 years old and in my first year of the Faculty of Architecture when I met Master Benedetto Messina: a distinguished man, full of humility, charisma, and knowledge.
Every Thursday at 5 p.m., before the Holy Mass in the Cathedral, he gave me lessons in Visual Education and Descriptive Geometry.
It was there, in front of the Pantocrator, that I truly understood what “mosaic culture” and constructivism meant. By drawing architectures and mosaics, I grasped the importance of the mosaic sketch.

I founded the company MUSAICUS, and later La Fornace di Bisanzio.
When in 2008 I chose the name “Bisanzio” for my company, I had no idea of the journey I was about to embark on: a path steeped in Arab-Norman culture, rooted in the territory, and aimed at the revitalization of the arts.
At La Fornace, my brother and I, together with our family, carried out all the workshop activities.

In 2015, the art critic Albano La Porta, looking at one of my works, told me:
“You will be called Il Bisanzio.”

That name represented the synthesis of visual arts, awareness of the territory, mosaic, ceramics, and glass.
From there came the idea of creating a brand that would tell the story of Monreale: its history, its mosaic scenography, its artistic ceramics.

The inspiration also came from the Michelangelo Prize in Bruges, which I received in 2015 as a simple artisan. At that moment, I realized I had to share my artistic story with my family.
Thus were born Ceramiche di Bisanzio S.r.l. and later Le Maioliche di Bisanzio Soc. Coop.
Because Il Bisanzio was meant to belong to everyone.

That name had to represent:
design, mosaics, ceramic arts, glass.
It had to involve each of us in the concept of beauty and functionality.

From this arose the idea of using the idealized head of William, sculpted in the main portal of the Monreale Cathedral – the Holy Door.
The inspiration came to me on a Sunday evening, during the entrance of the faithful for the Jubilee: my brother, my family, and I wanted a symbol that spoke of Arab-Norman history, not abstraction.
We wanted to represent Monreale, its mosaics, its artistic ceramics.

Thus was born Il Bisanzio, with its King William, inscribed in a pointed arch: a boundary between man and spirituality.
For everyone, Il Bisanzio.