History furniture History of walking sticks History of working walking sticks
		RAVARINI CASTODI & C. is, among walking-sticks manufacturers, the oldest firm in Italy and the most renowned in the wold. At the beginning it was a work-shop set up by Carlo Ravarini (1838-1912) since 1867 in the ancient Milan street “Via Tre Alberghi”. This old street, later demolished to give place to the Via Mazzini of present times, was part of the medieval City’s tangle of lanes around the Cathedral, swarming with busy work-shops, whose memory is stillliving in the names of Via Orefici, via Armorari, Via Speronari (Goldsmiths, Swordmakers, and Spurmakers-Streets). According to this rooted tradition of craftsmanship, Carlo Ravarini set up the manufacturing of his famous walking-sticks, bringing up generations of workmen, who becamein their turn masters to younger apprentices. Since three generations the firm RAVARINI CASTOLDI & C. through successive chenges and enlargements of its premises and in spite of a continuous technological improvement preserves the ancient manufacturing skill, keeping faithful to the traditional rigorous taste. It is worth noting that a limited series of sticks, made by precious materials and identical to the nineteenth century’s models is still produced. Since Milan Exibition of 1894 RAVARINI CASTOLDI & C. participates to the main international fairs with increasing success. Nowadays it can happen to the visitor to see in the most prestigious shop-windows of the capital cities of the world some elegant walking-sticks still marked with the small white disk RCM which was already set on the ebony or malacca stems in the ancient “Via Tre Alberghi” in Milan.