Giuseppe felt the first tremors. The ground rippled and then began to tremble violently. The earth became soft and he saw himself falling into a crack. He had nothing to grab onto and nothing offered a firm foothold. He was helpless and terrified. He surrendered to the movements of the earth. He lay down, shielding his head with his hands. And prayed. When the shaking stopped, he got out of the crack in the ground and ran towards the city. On the way, he passed fallen houses, cracked walls and squares full of potholes. It was a terrible sight. He ran home as fast as he could. When he arrived, he found... death. He saw the dead bodies of his mother, father and two sisters. It was his last day in L Aquila. He got on his horse and rode away...
Hetta Hearths
Back to roots
L Aquila
Death
Family
Tomo Ciofani
After two years of wandering, he arrived at a nature reserve in the Silesian town of Murcki in Poland. Here he met Julia, his future wife, and started a family. A big family. He loved to sit around the fire in the evenings and talk with his children, then his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He celebrated and cherished these moments because he felt best when the whole family was close. He never returned to Italy. His two daughters and his son returned. His third daughter, Gilda, my great-grandmother, stayed in Silesia. My name is Tomo Ciofani. Ever since I can remember, our family has gathered around the fire. These were important and wonderful moments for me.
Architecture
New story
When I grew up, I became an architect. I wanted to create beautiful buildings, but in architecture, beauty doesn’t come easy. Because you don t have time. And beauty needs time. It needs inspiration, revision, polishing and perfecting of the original version. While the investor is in a hurry. He has no time. I wanted to design beautiful buildings. But I couldn t. So I was thinking about creating something that would be mine and that would be beautiful. And people would buy it because it moved them. And so I created the hearth, and history came full circle. I came back to fire, to stone and to the moments with my family. I place my work into your hands. May it also create your story.
Vitruvius
Top quality workmanship
As an architect I am close to the ideas of Vitruvius, the Roman theoretician architecture. In his treatises, he wrote that perfection was determined by durability, utility and beauty. It is these ideas that have allowed me to create a product that stands the test of time.
Durability.
Refined every detail
You are acquiring a piece of art that will last for hundreds of years. The durability depends on the design, the materials used and the handcrafting. When designing the hearth, I tried to eliminate everything that could be damaged or broken during long-term use. Our hearth has no moving parts, electronics or anything that could stop working in 200 years. Our products are simple and beautiful. As for materials, I only use those with the highest resistance to time: stone, steel and concrete.
Beauty.
Beauty.Beauty takes time. Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa for 13 years. He reviewed, altered and improved it to produce an effect that continues to delight people long after his death. Like him, I’m improving my hearths all the time.... I try to make each successive version better and better. Each one is a little different and each one has its own story. That is why I number them and sign them with my name. I believe that beauty is simplicity, proportion and symmetry.
Utility
Key objective
This is the idea of taming fire and using it in any space. The design of the hearth makes it possible to dry wood on special shelves so that the wood is dry and burns easily. The fire chamber, with its ash pan, facilitates the supply of air, so that the combustion is complete and little smoke is produced. Even if you use the hearth on your terrace, you will not disturb your neighbours. In addition, the fire chamber rests on stone, which accumulates heat and insulates the entire remaining steel structure from it. As a result, you can even place the fireplace on a wooden terrace.
