Antonio Lancellotti

Antonio Lancellotti is a contemporary pipe maker working in the Basilicata region of southern Italy. Born in 1992, Lancellotti produces from a one-man workshop in Oppido Lucano, a small town set in the hilly terrain of the province of Potenza.

His relationship with the craft formed late and indirectly: after an old pipe that came into his hands caught his interest, he spent a while studying materials and design, began trying his hand at carving briar in 2020, and set up his workshop in 2021, the year he acquired his own lathe. His annual output is reported at between sixty and seventy pipes.

Method

Most of Lancellotti's work rests not on a pre-drawn template but on decisions made according to the grain and density of the block at hand, which brings the bulk of his production closer to the freehand approach. He is reported to use two different working orders: in classic shapes the holes are drilled first and the bowl is then shaped, while in free designs the order is reversed, with the shape cut first and drilling left until the end. He sources his briar from Italian suppliers. He hand-cuts stems from ebonite rod, and is also noted to use Cumberland. Materials such as horn, boxwood, brass rings, and Elforyn come into play only as measured transition rings.