Club Area
After having fulfilled such rites as signing the guest book in the large hall on the ground floor dominated by a large ancient lathe, we climbed the stairs to the first floor where a spacious room houses all kinds of machinery used to work briar. This room is dedicated to St. Claude, the pipe capital, which Paronelli regularly visits in search of new material for his museum. All the machinery is perfectly working, and if one had the whim could be used immediately. Among work benches, tools, briar blocks and sections, the visitor‘s eye is drawn to an immense statue of Christ that seems to dominate and protect the entire area. It was made by Paronelli out of Olive-tree wood from Sardinia, a land which he is very fond of. From here we move onto the Rossi room, entirely dedicated to the industrial Italian pipe maker. Here, one can admire nearly 6000 pipes made by the factory that carried his name as well as the diplomas and certificates awarded to the firm by national and international fairs from the end and beginning of the century. The walls of the next room are covered by hand painted plates (again by Paronelli) whose themes range from freedom and civilizations to "pipe art". The following room is the seat of the International Pipe Academy: draped in solemnity everything seems to be ready for an imminent meeting. The room is furnished with book cases teeming with pipes, pipe-cabinets, pipe racks, smoker‘s cabinets and artistic objects related to smoking.
Right beside this council room- how else could it have been- is Paronelli‘s studio. Here, he creates new pipe models and treasures his absolutely, original pipes. I am sure that the splendid view of the lake fires his creativity. Continuing through other rooms, one can admire thousands of pipes from various continents made of all types of materials other than briar: meerschaum, porcelain, white and red clay, precious and non-precious metals and boxwood. I would like to point out that all the pipes are undefiled, none have been smoked. Our friend proudly ends the tour by showing us some of the pipes he made in his youth, earthen pipes that faithfully reproduce those found in the Americas when the civilization of tobacco was discovered. As Pierre Schiltz says, however, this is not an attempt at imitation but rather the rediscovery of a lost art, the understanding of a ritual, the comprehension of those civilizations for which tobacco was both a mystery and a therapy. Last but not least, a beautiful library packed with books, publications, specialized magazines, old and rare pipe catalogues and historical documents relating to the history, culture and diffusion of pipe smoking completes the beautiful museum.
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