Maestro orafo

• Graduated from art school, I immediately dedicated myself to training thanks to the ancient family tradition. My mother Antonietta Cataldo, the first of eleven children, is a 'jewelry creator' and her father Donn'Antonio, specialized in the processing of corals, cameos and shells, ran his factory in Torre del Greco, here I learned the first processing techniques and those secrets that no school can give you.

• I specialized between 1991 and 1993 in Naples in: jewelery design, goldsmithing, gemology, setting and cutting of precious stones at the Neapolitan Goldsmith Art School. During these three years of specialization, I was lucky enough to attend a high jewelery laboratory, where the jewel was made with the most traditional techniques and with those finishes that characterized the path of my training. In the same years I attended the workshops in the company of my grandfather Antonio Cataldo in Torre del Greco and of his sons Salvatore Cataldo and Elvido Cataldo and I learned notions of goldsmith craftsmanship, coral working, mother of pearl and cameo engraving. In 2013 I participated in the seminars organized by I.G.I. of Antwerp:

- risks associated with the use of gems in the goldsmith processing phases

-the scientific criteria underlying the qualitative analysis of the diamond

-identification of the main treatments.

In 2015 I completed my specialization in cutting and faceting of precious stones at Gemmarum Lapidator.

In 2021 I will specialize as an expert on the recognition of colored stones at the IGI headquarters in Antwerp in Naples.

In 2022 I will specialize in diamond 1 and 2 at the IGI headquarters in Antwerp in Naples. Both gemology courses (2021-2022) were carried out by professor Sequino Francesco, the exam was corrected and verified by the Antwerp office.

In 2022, in my store I will welcome the students of the Erasmus project for the promotion of entrepreneurial skills, a jewel from the processing of obsidian* to the finished jewel.*(a volcanic glass present in the quarry on the island of Lipari).