What even is a Studiolo?

One of my favorite things is when I hear a word I had never heard before and something in my body responds.

First of all, in all the years I’ve been alive, how could I not know this word?

Oh, right.

I did grow up in Brazil and I moved to the US, and this is an Italian word…

Okay, okay.

But still.

It hit my body like a familiar word at the same time it caught my attention because it was new.

How absurdly exquisite.

So let me start from the place where I got hooked.

A studiolo was a small private room found in Renaissance homes and palaces.

Part study, part cabinet of curiosities, part retreat from the world.

It was a place for reading, writing, collecting, thinking, looking closely at things, and generally following one’s curiosities wherever they happened to lead.

Which feels to me like a human right.

This space you are in now is a modern version of that room.

In progress, of course.

As it compounds, you’ll find thoughts, films, conversations, objects, experiments, strange little fascinations, and whatever else seems worth sharing and keeping.

Some things will be useful.
Some things will be beautiful.
Some things may provoke the unexpected.
Some things may send us down a rabbit hole for three weeks.

That is sort of the point.

There are things here about creativity and making. About brands and the people who build them. About identity, mythology, ambition, desire, attention, beauty, meaning, and being a person in the world.

I don’t know about you, but I find myself wanting to remember what it means to be a person in the world.

Maybe a studiolo is a good place to start.

Welcome to ours.