Dino da Campione

Dino da Campione was the artist's name of wood sculpturer and pipe maker Lorenzo Airaghi, who had his workshop in a village named Campione in Lombardia - oh, there are several places of this name in that region... So the common infomation.

Some things must be put right. 1. his first name was Leonardo and not Lorenzo. 2. his artist's name was not deduced from a village in Lombardia but from the diminutive form "Leonardino" and "Campione d'Italia" (i.e., an Italian enclave in Canton Ticino, Switzerland). 3. Airaghi had his workshop on Via Bramante in Milano.

His pipes, predominantly leaning on the classic shapes, are supposed to have been of finest style. Sandro Pertini, Italy's beloved former President, is listed among his long time customers. Airaghi used snails as symbols for grading his pipes. He was almost unknown outside Italy where the pipewise men treated him as insiders' tip.

Around the end of the 1970's, so an Italian pipe friend reported, he came once again to Airaghi's house, whom he described as very sociable. The son of the house opened and asked unfriendly what he wanted. The visitor answered he wanted to buy a pipe but Airaghi Jr. bawled him out the father was sick and he mustn't be annoyed in any way. E basta!

As it seems, ever since that no one heard of Leonardo Airaghi again. Though some own pipes they suppose to be made in the first half of the 1980s. But these might be from old stock as well.

The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. in Milano exhibits sculptures of Leonardo Airaghi's great grandfather Tomaso Airaghi.