Bricco

We due the name “Bricco” to Countess Tarsilla Petitti di Roreto who, living it in the small hamlet of Bricco, decided to start a production to give an earning chance to the girls. History of Bricco technique origin is fascinating. 

In the early 1900s, Countess Tarsilla Petitti di Roreto (1868–1937), great artistic talent and remarkable human qualities one, realized that the population of lower Piedmont, especially the Cherasco area in the province of Cuneo, primarily devoted to agriculture, was suffering from severe poverty and destitution. Young girls, confined to their homes and without education, were condemned to a life of work and ignorance. Tarsilla, aware of her privileged position as a wealthy and cultured woman, decided to help these young women and, with the collaboration of her mother Tommasina and her sisters Emilia, Maria, and Luisa, founded a school-workshop in 1913. They made their home, in Bricco de’ Faule, 

available for this initiative. They primarily taught the girls to read and write providing them with a basic general education. Such an opportunity represented an unexpected and unhoped-for opportunity for redemption of girls. They also ensure they had a chance to earn a modest income, which would allow them to become financially independent from their families—a rare and not particularly well-regarded skill at the time—Tarsilla decided to teach the girls the art of embroidery. The workers quickly specialized in embroidering the designs derived from the alb and were able to fulfil the first orders from wealthy benefactors. 

The embroideries from the Bricco de' Faule school-workshop were presented in more than one of the annual Exhibition-Sales held in Turin on those years and were registered with the "Industrie Femminili Italiane" in Rome, meeting with public acclaim. With the outbreak of World War I in 1915, with men leaving for the front, there was a shortage of labourers to work the land, and consequently, fewer embroiderers were needed, who had to return to farm work to replace the men. 

The school turned to nuns from convents and city ladies, impoverished by the rising cost of living. They quickly became the only embroiderers in the workshop. 

The school-workshop, despite periods of difficulty, achieved a reasonable level of production, especially in the 1920s and 1930s, providing employment for a good number of women. 

It was awarded a gold medal at the Agricultural-Industrial Exhibition of the City of Cherasco in 1923 and received numerous orders from the Industri Femminili Italiane, which, to demonstrate their appreciation for her work, awarded nine 100-lire prize shares to the best embroiderers. 

Tarsilla's death in 1937 at the age of 69 and, shortly thereafter, the outbreak of World War II, brought the School-workshop to an end and, consequently, the end of Bricco embroidery.