Roberto Mele: time, patience and precision

A child of today lives among toys and sophisticated things. A child of the past used to spend his days among fantasy and creativity, among simple products and few toys. The most beautiful hobby was creating from nothing something that he saw previously as built by experts. A ten-year-old child enjoyed watching his father that worked as a goldsmith and as a watchmaker and he imitated his gestures.


This child was Roberto Mele, goldsmith and watchmaker, who since he was a child dedicated himself to this passion, beginning with small things, such as disassembling clocks and watches. The love for this artisan job did not abandoned him. Earlier, he worked elsewhere; but, during the time, his heart encouraged him towards the world of watchmaking and goldsmithing. His father, who was his teacher, was one of the veterans in this field in Cagliari. He attended a course of micromechanics in Algeria and, during the War, in the period when he was a prisoner, he learnt this kind of art and other talents, such as the realization of the mandolin. Between a prisoner and another there was an exhange of skills, techniques and experiences.

The little boy Roberto grew up and took father’s advices to heart. Thanks to the experience, his passion became a true job, encouraged him to do works of watchmaking and goldsmithing, creating a rarity of finding a goldsmith that works as a watchmaker, too, and vice versa. The Roberto Mele’s art is present in Assemini for thirty years. He is one of the few experts in this field that is able to keep long-lasting his job, despite the job as a watchmaker is in the phase of extinction. As a goldsmith, he is involved in the restoration of ancient samples and in the manufacturing and creation of new samples, ex novo.


Fantasy cannot be away; it is at the base of everything. But, an important role belongs to customer, too, who, according to his request, allows the goldsmith to reproduce unique and very peculiar things. As a watchmaker, he is involved in the restoration of pendula and watches, some of which are eighty years old. The clocks called "parisian" and those cuckoo are other samples that Roberto Mele takes care of in detail, until he did not have the desired result. He is involved both in the restoration of everything is mechanic and of everything is electronic.


Among updates and particular requests, it was born also the idea of creating bonbonnières for important ceremonies, giving a priority to personalized things. Indeed, the traditional bonbonnière, although it is still an aim of request and offer, it leaves a space to the things that are more suitable to people to which they must be given: if bride and groom must do a gift for their witnesses, they opt preferably for products mainly addressed to their necessities – a watch for man, a jewel or a silver photoframe for woman. There are some requests of golden parchments as a gift for a degree.


Filigree is an essential element of Roberto Mele’s work. "Thread" and "grain" give the name to the procedure, through which he can link four threads and rolling them and, through other phases of manufacturing, he can create a ring, that needs a week for being realized by hand. A lack of young people of today, who have this passion, concerns the incompetence of making works through filigree, became by now a very important activity.

The techniques accomplished by Roberto Mele are various: that called "saggio", in Italian language, is a method of evaluation of the properties of a product and of the quantity of metal contained into a thing. It consists in the use of a so-called "touchstone" on which he scrapes the object in question, using an acid and obtaining a particular reaction.


The "galvanic baths" represent a way for avoiding that a thing is exposed to phenomena of oxidation and corrosion. It is a magnetic attraction of the liquid metal towards other kinds of metals and, through the phenomenon of electrolysis, he transports the liquid metal on that solid. Among the tools used there is the "burin", a bit that has the purpose of carving some marks on the thing, and the "pantograph", that is a machine very useful for carving rings. The last are the pantographs with laser, that, through computer, transmit and register a signal.


The art of goldsmithing and watchmaking need time and patience and it is important not to show stress and fear, because everything is made with precision. The realization of a product is done through a perfect attention and without no particular idea as those ancient, according to which glass was considered a material that drove away the evil, unlike another towards which there was a kind of superstition.