Cavicchi (Claudio Cavicchi)

Cavicchi is an Italian pipe workshop founded in a farmhouse near Bologna, and it bears the surname of its founder. Claudio Cavicchi came to the craft by an unusual route: he spent thirty years farming, and worked out pipe-making not under a master but at his own lathe.

The workshop is counted today among the small number of independent Italian makers still producing in low volume; its name is owed to its rigor in sorting blocks and to a grading system that climbs with the number of letters stamped on the pipe.

An Impatient Start at the Lathe

The beginning has to do with an order that never arrived. Through a local tobacconist, Cavicchi ordered an Oom Paul-shaped pipe from the Caminetto brand; the pipe was never delivered. Sources put the wait anywhere from several months to more than a year. Having finally given up waiting, Cavicchi got hold of a block of briar and a ready-made acrylic mouthpiece and carved out something resembling the pipe he had ordered himself. Records place this first attempt in 1974; the workshop never closed again.

Pipe-making remained a long-running sideline to farming for many years. After Cavicchi gave up his thirty years of farming to work full-time, his annual output did not rise — since the time devoted to each piece grew longer, it actually fell. The workshop runs on a family scale; his wife Daniela handles tasks such as polishing the mouthpieces and opening up rustic surfaces.