Corsellini

Corsellini is an Italian pipe workshop founded in Florence in 1880 and kept in the hands of the same family for three generations. Its name is associated both with its handmade output, never exceeding a few hundred pieces a year, and with the place the family's third-generation representative, Alessandro Corsellini, holds in the Italian pipe-club tradition.

Three Generations

The brand's founder, Arturo Corsellini, worked under another Florentine master before setting up on his own, opening his own workshop in 1880. He ran the workshop himself until 1913, after which Ugo Corsellini, having completed his apprenticeship, took over. Records indicate Ugo's management lasted until the mid-1960s.

The third generation's representative, Alessandro Corsellini, watched the workshop's operations from childhood and began making pipes full-time from 1961. He is said to have also run a pipe shop for many years in the center of Florence, near the Duomo; during this period the brand was one of the visible fixtures of the city's pipe life.

Approach to Making

The Corsellini workshop never turned toward serial production, remaining small in scale. Today annual output is said to run around two hundred pipes, with most of the work carried out by a single hand. Records indicate that the briar the workshop uses comes from Calabria in southern Italy; southern Italy is one of the country's traditional supply grounds for workshops.

The bulk of production consists of classic shapes; alongside this, freehand examples are also made, following the maker's personal interest. Mouthpieces are not bought ready-made but hand-cut from acrylic rod. Acrylic is a mouthpiece material that offers a different balance of hardness and color stability compared to vulcanite.

Stamps

The stamp arrangement on Corsellini pipes is built around the brand name, the founding year, and the maker's initials. The shank generally carries a script "Corsellini" name, "1880" marking the founding year, and "AC," the initials of Alessandro Corsellini. Alongside this comes the year of production and a descending quality grading of A, B, and C. Examples seen on the market may also show "hand made" wording and a four-digit year next to these stamps; the set of stamps is the chief basis for dating secondhand pipes.

Contest Tradition

Alessandro Corsellini's name is associated not only with the workshop but also with slow pipe-smoking contests. He is said to have founded Italy's first pipe club in Florence in 1965, entered his first competition in 1967, and won the European championship in 1969 and 1972. The measure in this discipline is fixed: how long the pipe can be kept burning without going out on the three grams of tobacco given to the competitor. Corsellini's time of over three hours in 1969 is recorded as breaking a limit no one had passed before. The club tradition is one of the currents also feeding Italy's pipe academy circle.