A story by William Bertoia”

“"I first came to know the Tagliamento River as a child. In the summer, my mother would take me there by bicycle early in the morning, so we could breathe the cool, crisp air before the sun warmed the vast stretches of riverbed. The awakening of nature—from the blooming flowers to the scurrying animals and the flight of birds—was, and still is, a truly unique spectacle."”

During those long walks along the salt marshes—the small islands that edge the braided currents of the river—William Bertoia, founder of Friul Mosaic, learned from his mother how to play simple skill games using the river's pebbles. Or rather, pebbles from the Great River, as he called it.

The immense gravel bed of the Tagliamento has, over the centuries, been a vital resource for building rural homes, roads, bridges, fortifications, and castles throughout the Friuli region. Even today, its highly siliceous and remarkably durable gravel and sand are used in construction.

And so, from those early compositions made with small stones on the sand, and later with the little mosaic cubes found in two old sacks in a cellar, a passion for mosaics was born. “A craft and art that had belonged to my grandfather Pietro,” William recalls, “a mosaicist and terrazzo worker during the Austro-Hungarian Empire—those sacks were the only inheritance he left me.”

His deeper knowledge of stone and mastery of mosaic technique came later, through rigorous training at the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli in Spilimbergo. This school, a true center of excellence in the field, was founded in 1922 and has, in nearly a century, trained thousands of artisans who have carried the Italian mosaic tradition across Europe.
“The first lessons,” William remembers, “involved going down to the river with our teacher to select the most compact stones—the ones that could be cut with the hammer, the mosaicist's key tool.” Compact dolomites, volcanic silicas, and colorful sandstones are still there today, waiting for a skilled eye and a steady hand to collect them, shape them, and transform them into noble compositions that decorate surfaces and spaces.

Once brought to the workshop, the raw materials are sliced into thick slabs, then cut into small cubes or tiles using the classic double-headed hammer, forged from special steel and shaped like a lowered arch.

William Bertoia's bond with the Tagliamento has always been deep and complete.