The Collection and the Collector

Like many other collections, Mauro Carli's started when, in 1992, he found an old coffee machine in his cellar, inherited from his family, which was an unusual shape and had a strange way of working.

The collector's curiosity about the existence of other similar objects produced for the daily ritual of making coffee, drove Carli to look in dozens of flea markets, antiques fairs and on-line international auctions.

Thus, a door opened onto an infinite world of complicated extraction systems, machines, apparatus, alembics, unexpected shapes and materials which went well beyond the familiar Moka or Eduardo De Filippo's famous Napoletana.

In order to select, understand and catalogue the many different pieces he found, it became necessary for Carli to study the bibliography of coffee machines and exchange information constantly with those working in the 'world of coffee'.

Mauro Carli's research still continues today, in a more accurate way and with more awareness given that, thanks to the collector's particularly well-trained eye and endless patience, flea markets and on-line auctions still offer many surprises.