One of the oldest continuously operating sculpture workshops in Carrara
Studi di Scultura Nicoli is one of the oldest continuously operating sculpture workshops in Carrara and one of the clearest surviving examples of the traditional Carrara casa-bottega, where workshop, modeling rooms, artist accommodation, family residence, and marble production developed together as a single working environment.
The Nicoli family’s involvement with marble working reaches back to Tito Nicoli in 1835. His son, sculptor Carlo Nicoli, formally registered the business in 1863 and later moved the workshops to their present location in Piazza XXVII Aprile, where the purpose-built complex provided the larger spaces needed for monumental sculpture. The workshops have remained associated with the Nicoli family and Carrara’s marble-working tradition ever since.
Over generations, the bottega has worked with an extraordinary succession of sculptors, including Giovanni Dupré, Leonardo Bistolfi, Arturo Martini, Fausto Melotti, César, Floriano Bodini, Giuliano Vangi, Michelangelo Pistoletto, and many other international artists. The studio developed not simply as a fabrication shop but as a place where visiting artists could work alongside Carrara’s highly trained marble artisans.
Traditional methods remain particularly important at Nicoli. The workshop describes continued use of messa ai punti, enlargement based on geometric systems and skilled manual carving. Contemporary laser scanning and robotic equipment are also used where appropriate, particularly for limited editions and preliminary machining, but final carving and finishing remain in the hands of trained sculptors and artisans.
The complex also preserves an important collection of plaster casts, models, sculptures and archival material accumulated over nearly two centuries. Studi Nicoli functions therefore as both a working bottega and a historical record of Carrara’s international sculpture tradition. It has also been recognized by UNESCO as a site carrying a message of peace.
Studio Directory
Studio Information
- Studio type
- Bottega
- Location
- Carrara, Massa-Carrara (MS) | Tuscany | Italia, Italy
- Address
- Piazza XXVII Aprile, 8/E
- Website
- https://www.studidiscultura.it/
- info@carlonicoli.com
- Telephone
- +39 349 6612408
- Visiting notes
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Studi Nicoli is located in the center of Carrara and is particularly worth visiting because the historic workshop itself is part of the experience. The complex retains the character of the nineteenth-century Carrara house-workshop, with large working spaces originally designed for monumental sculpture, modeling rooms, and areas associated with generations of visiting artists.
Visitors should contact the studio in advance. The workshop has offered guided visits as well as individual and group sculpture experiences, allowing professional sculptors and students to work alongside skilled Carrara artisans. Its sculpture programs include both traditional hand carving and pneumatic working, while the workshop also contains cranes, compressors and contemporary robotic equipment.
For a practicing sculptor, Nicoli is especially significant because it allows one to see several generations of sculpture practice occupying the same place: plaster models, pointing and enlargement, hand carving, monumental production, contemporary artists, and robotic technology all exist within a workshop whose roots reach back into nineteenth-century Carrara.