Gold as Memory: Meeting Giampaolo Babetto in Milan

There are encounters that stay with you because they give shape to something you already felt, but had not yet found the right words for, meeting Giampaolo Babetto in Milan was one of those moments.

We had admired his work for a long time: its geometry, its silence, its apparent simplicity, and the extraordinary way in which gold becomes structure, surface, weight, and light. But listening to him speak about his pieces, seeing the objects in front of us, hearing how each decision was born from the material and from the body, made his work feel even more alive. 

The talk took place at Salotto SPJ, an intimate space in Milan hosted by a Scandinavian designer living in the city, who regularly opens her home to conversations around jewellery, design, and craftsmanship. It is also where we previously had the pleasure of meeting Giovanni Corvaja, another extraordinary figure of Italian contemporary goldsmithing. In a way, this encounter felt like a continuation of that story. Corvaja and Babetto do not belong to the same generation, and their works are immediately different. Yet they share a common ground: the Padua School, and with it a way of approaching jewellery that is deeply connected to research, discipline, material intelligence, and the hand.

Babetto was born in Padua in 1947. He studied at the Pietro Selvatico Art Institute in Padua and later at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice. Over the decades, he became one of the most important names in Italian contemporary jewellery, recognised internationally for a language that combines goldsmithing, geometry, architecture, and art.  

But what moved us most was not only the importance of his career. It was the fact that he is still here, still working, still thinking through material with the same precision and curiosity. Listening to him felt like being in front of a living memory of a craft that is becoming increasingly rare, not because jewellery is disappearing, but because the time, knowledge, and patience required to truly understand material are harder and harder to preserve.

Working according to the material

One of the phrases that stayed with us was simple and powerful: "A scuola si imparava a lavorare secondo il materiale." At school, one learned to work according to the material. This sentence says so much about Babetto's work. In his pieces, material is never passive. Gold is not used simply because it is precious, nor is it only a surface that gives value to a form. Gold is part of the idea itself. Its resistance, softness, tension, reflection, weight, and memory all participate in the construction of the jewel. 

During the talk, Babetto explained a bracelet whose form follows the arm in a continuous line. What might look, at first glance, like a pure geometric object is actually the result of a complex dialogue between material, technique, and body. He wanted the form to move naturally around the arm. But then came the problem of the closure. In a line like that, he explained, any visible clasp or added element would disturb the whole piece. The solution had to work, but it also had to almost disappear. Only a small pin remains visible. Enough to close the bracelet, but not enough to interrupt the form. 

This is where his work becomes so fascinating to us. The technical solution is not separate from the aesthetic one. The clasp is not an accessory added at the end. It is part of the thinking of the object.

Babetto explained that the bracelet is not simply curved. It is formed by hammering. Through hammering, the material hardens, deforms, and stores tension. Then, when the piece is cut to create the closure, that same internal tension becomes useful: it helps the bracelet lock into place. For us the beauty in his idea is that the material is not forced to obey: it is understood and its behaviour becomes part of the design.

The jewel must live on the body

Another sentence stayed with us: "Il gioiello deve vivere sul corpo."  The jewel must live on the body. This might sound obvious, but in contemporary jewellery it is a fundamental reminder. Babetto's pieces are beautiful even when they are resting on a table. They can be seen as small sculptures, miniature architectures, geometric studies in gold. But for him, that is not enough. A jewel becomes fully itself only when it is worn. On the body, everything changes; there is movement, there is light, there is weight, there is comfort, or discomfort. There is the way a form follows the arm, the neck, the hand. There is the way a piece gives intensity to the person wearing it. 

This is a thought we felt very close to. As jewellers, we know that an object can be perfect in a display case and still not be alive. Jewellery is not only something to look at. It has to enter into a relationship with the body. It has to find its place in movement, in gesture, in daily life.

Babetto described the jewel almost as an architecture for the body. We loved this idea because it contains both precision and intimacy. Architecture gives structure, but the body gives life.

Geometry, but never cold

Babetto's work is often described through geometry: lines, planes, volumes, repetition, structure. And yes, his pieces have an extraordinary formal clarity. There is nothing accidental. Every element seems measured, reduced, purified. But seeing the pieces in person, and hearing him talk about them, makes it clear that this geometry is not cold. It is not geometry as distance. It is geometry as a way of listening: A sequence of gold modules can become rhythm. A folded surface can become light. A line can become movement around the wrist. A closure can become invisible because the form asks for silence.

In one of the pieces shown during the talk, a series of gold geometric elements unfolded almost like a miniature architecture. Each module was precise, almost rational, yet the whole object felt alive because of the way the gold caught the light. The material was not simply covering the form: it gave the piece warmth, rhythm, and movement. This is what makes Babetto's work so powerful. He combines the discipline of geometry with the intelligence of the material. The result is rigorous, but never empty. Minimal, but never poor. Silent, but full of presence.

Gold as transformation

There is also something deeply symbolic in the way Babetto approaches gold: at the beginning of his career, when gold was not easily available, he used family jewellery, even jewellery belonging to his mother, melting it and transforming it into new pieces. We find this story incredibly meaningful. Gold, in this case, is not just a luxury material. It is memory. It is inheritance. It is something that carries a past, but can also be transformed into a new language. This idea resonates strongly with us. At minrl, we often think about value: what makes a material precious, what gives meaning to an object, what remains when something is transformed. In Babetto's work, value is not only economic. It is cultural, emotional, technical, and human. The material has a memory, but the hand gives it a future.

A living keeper of a rare knowledge

What we felt during the talk was not nostalgia, but respect. Babetto is not preserving craftsmanship as something frozen in the past. He is proof that traditional goldsmithing can still be radical, contemporary, and alive. His work reminds us that craft is not only the ability to make something well. It is the ability to think through making. To solve problems with the hand. To understand how a material behaves before deciding what it should become.
The vases in this picture are made of very thin hammered silver, they are light and flexible, this kind of knowledge is difficult to replace. It is not written in books but learned through time, through mistakes, through tools, through the resistance of metal, through the sound of the hammer. In a world where objects are often produced quickly and consumed quickly, listening to Babetto was a reminder of a slower rhythm, very attentive: the rhythm of the hand.

What we took home

We left the talk with more than admiration, with a renewed sense of why jewellery matters. It can be small, but it is never insignificant. It can hold architecture, memory, light, movement, technique, and emotion in a very concentrated space. It can speak about material, but also about the body. It can be an object, but also a relationship.

Meeting Giampaolo Babetto reminded us that a jewel is not complete because it is finished. It is complete when it finds its place on the body, when it moves, when it reflects light, when it gives something to the person who wears it, and perhaps this is what keeps craftsmanship alive: not repeating the past, but continuing to ask what a material can become. 

For us, this encounter was a privilege. A moment of learning, inspiration, and gratitude. Another chapter in our ongoing exploration of Italian contemporary jewellery, and of the people who have shaped and continue to shape its language.

If this kind of conversation resonates with you, we'd love for you to be part of our community. Follow our journey, explore our pieces, or simply reach out, we are always happy to connect with people who care about craft.