Italian Artisans of marble mosaic in the United Kingdom: migrants as conveyors of skills and knowledge in a transnational perspective

Abstract

The paper highlights the migration experience of a highly specialised group of artisans in the field of marble mosaic and terrazzo flooring. The majority of marble mosaic and terrazzo artisans who arrived in the UK from the 1870s onwards came from the northeastern Italian region of Friuli, and boasted an ancient family tradition dating back to late sixteenth-century Venice. In the Lagoon city, and later in the UK, the art of terrazzo was basically monopolised by these craftsmen – indeed many artisans established their own mosaic and terrazzo companies, an entrepreneurial tendency that might be explained in the light of this ancestral tradition. Their contribution to the destination society was noteworthy: major buildings in London and elsewhere in the UK were embellished with marble mosaic and terrazzo flooring by Italian artisans. The UK also represented a point of departure: between the 1870s and early 1900s, many Italian mosaic and terrazzo workers reached the US and Australia having worked in the British job market.