A Conversation With Maurizio Tombari: Founder of Le Nuvole

A Conversation With Maurizio Tombari is the name of an interview conducted by email between Italian pipe maker Maurizio Tombari and Bear Graves, published on Smokingpipes.com; in archives it is referenced under the title "Conversation With A Conversation With Maurizio Tombari." The interview's own stated date is March 2006; this date has not been confirmed by an independent record. Because the interview itself is copyrighted, only the facts it contains have been compiled below, and these have been cross-checked as far as possible against the workshop's own records.

Tombari's Background and Le Nuvole

Tombari was born in 1953 in Pesaro, and in 1978 earned a diploma in painting from the Accademia di Belle Arti in Urbino. In the interview he recounts acquiring his first pipe in the summer of that same year, a few months before he began working at the Mastro de Paja workshop. The brand's official biography gives 1978-1996 as a single period: during these years he worked both at Mastro de Paja and at Ser Jacopo, while also pursuing painting and interior work; which years belong to which workshop cannot be disentangled from the records. He founded his own brand, Le Nuvole, in 1996; from 1998 onward the brand's website became the workshop's main channel of communication with the outside world. Production has been kept small from the start: while the workshop's current statement points to one hundred to one hundred twenty pipes a year, other records give figures exceeding two hundred; the common point is that the number has never exceeded a few hundred in any period.

Grading and Stamp System

The number stamped over the cloud mark under the shank grades the pipe from 1 to 8. The upper tiers are distinguished by the fineness of the grain; the top grade, 8, is reserved for what the community calls "angel hair," an exceptionally fine grain, and by the workshop's own figures it was achieved on only two pipes in its first twelve years. Starting in January 2008, an S was added above the cloud mark for sandblasted pipes; this group is further divided into S1, S2, and S3 based on the wood's appearance and color after blasting.

What the Interview Records

The interview is notable for capturing several first-hand details of the workshop's operations. The workshop occupies the ground floor of the family's three-story house; the briar stock is kept in a temperature- and humidity-controlled, vibration-isolated room. Tombari states that his search for shape is tied to Pesaro's ceramic tradition, which reaches back to the Middle Ages, and to amphora silhouettes, and that most of the designs belong to his wife, Stefania Tombari. Asked which makers he admires, he names the Castello brand, and among his contemporaries the names Larry Roush, Rolando Negoita, and Peter Matzhold. The name "Zed," used for freer shapes that depart from the brand's measured main line, is also explained in this record. Personal details in the text have been left out of this entry for reasons of copyright and verifiability.

Eighteen years after the interview, in December 2024, a 180-page Le Nuvole monograph prepared by Diego Morlin was published in Italian. The foreword was written by the blender Gregory L. Pease, who has his own separate entry on PipoWiki.