[Music] I am a silversmith and goldsmith, a#metal worker, an alchemist, art historian.

All these things put together because I like life and I like to explore things.

So maybe I can say I'm an explorer.

Silver has been an# extremely important metal since antiquity.

And I consider silver the most beautiful metal, much more beautiful than gold.

I find gold a little vulgar.

[Music] But silver is beautiful because it reflects#light.

As you walk around an object, you see the, all the reflection#change.

So in my work, I try to control those reflections to make silver dance with lights.

The soup tureen with the fish and#everything was created with the reflections in mind.

But all the#movement are the movement of a boat.

It's just a undulating calm sea.

That is the one the fisherman prefers.

[Music] [cars honking] My family in Rome we're four generation silversmiths and goldsmiths.

My great-grandfather, his name was Ubaldo like me.

He opened his# shop and then my grandfather had his shop and then my father had his own workshop by#the time he was 24.

The family concept was that the moment you reach a certain#age, you will go on your own and opening your own workshop.

Yeah, that's fine.# That's it.

This is good.

This is good.

[Hammering] But to be a silversmith, the training is no you#don't just to work the metal.

The training is to study art, art history and design.

So I was sent#to the Academy of Fine Art and Sculpture in Rome.

[Music] I was a great admirer of Pope John the 23rd and#I create for him in my father worship a gold ink stand and the pen.

It was given to him as a#gift.

I was 17.

[Music] There was this American girl that I met at the academy and that was the# reason why I came to America.

September 27, 1967.

Few months later, we got married.

I worked#in New York for 9 months.

Then I opened my own place and I got commission from# Tiffany and then Steuben Glass and Cartier.

I was very fortunate.

[Music] Most silversmith use the repousse method that means been chased from both sides.

This is actually an impression from a 17th#century German basin.

Once I make the drawings, these drawings will be put on a piece#of metal that is embedded in pitch and we trace the drawings down into the#metal.

Then we start sinking the masses.

Once you have totally sunk the figure from the back, then we remove from the pitch and we turn it around.

And that's what# we have, the relief.

From this on, now you have to finish the front.

You're putting all the# details on and the sharpness of the figure.

For the goldsmith, silversmith, metalworker, the hammers are the most important tool.

And to use my favorite line#from Michelangelo poem, no hammer can be made without a hammer.

So we have the forge.

We can make our own.

They each one of them has their own use.

And you can see they're all different.

This is a planishing hammer.

You#do not strike it.

You just caress it so that you are smoothing# down the silver.

This is my favorite.

I've used this probably 10#time more than any other.

Mwah.

[Music] My family constantly restore objects both for museums and private collections.

Sometime there were religious objects like#Judaica.

I restored several Torah crowns.

They were in terrible condition.

You can#imagine they were buried during the war.

We restore the original beauty, but I will not# touch it until I research the history of the object.

You want to transpose yourself into#the person that created it.

It's almost like the artist that made it is telling you that's what I#meant.

Make sure you respect me.

When I was a teenager, maybe 18, I went to see an#exhibition on the American Revolution.

One of the things that caught my eye as a silversmith# was the Liberty Bowl.

It was made by Paul Revere.

A lot of Paul Revere silver is fairly regular and#some is quite spectacular.

After the Revolutionary War, he's doing fluted teapots which are#really the hallmark of his ability.

They're really quite remarkable.

His father Apollos Rivoire was#French.

He came to Boston at the age of 13, learned a trade.

He opened a shop, brought#his son, Paul into the shop to apprentice.

Paul does eventually take on his father's#shop.

Paul Revere carves out his niche as being a silversmith that can make whatever you#need.

Paul Revere is not only doing this himself, he has a team of apprentices and journeymen who are working in his shop.

So he's already starting to think pretty#early about how he can expand his business.

The Paul Revere House, which was built#around 1680, is the oldest surviving building in original Boston.

By the time the Revere family moves#in 1770, it's a little bit of a fixer upper, but his silversmith shop is going to be located a few blocks away, so location's perfect.

The buildup to the revolution is not military#action.

It's community activists.

The Liberty Bowl is actually commissioned by the Sons of Liberty.

This rebellious group that's stirring up troubles here in the colony.

Their ideas are that we are#being taxed without representation.

The idea that we will separate from the United Kingdom.

On this#bowl, Paul has engraved the names of those Sons of Liberty members.

This is a kind of revolutionary#act that he is doing to be affiliated with this act of rebellion.

Next to it in the exhibition# was Paul Revere's engraving of the Boston Massacre with the name of the patriots that died.

It moved#me tremendously that the silversmith made these objects.

So he's the person who's chosen for the Midnight#Ride.

One if by land and two if by sea.

It turns out the British troops are going by water.

And so#Revere is rowed by two friends across to Charles Town.

He borrows a horse and rides off.

He gets#to Lexington.

He has alerted people along the way.

The British troops are coming.

And so he becomes# our favorite patriot and silversmith, Paul Revere.

[Music] After I moved to America, I restored#more than 12 objects of Paul Revere.

I remember the first one was a simple teapot.

And I say, it probably like looking at an old friend like say, you know, I met you in Rome.

You#don't remember me, but here I am.