WRITTEN BY ALBERTO GIORDANO
A close look at the work of great and unusual makers
Paolo De Barbieri was born in 1889 in Genoa. In 1902, aged 13, he left a note on the kitchen table which read ‘Back in a minute’: he left home for about six years to work as a cabin boy. He completed his military service in the navy and in 1912 received a medal for participating in the Italian attack on the Dardanelles, part of the Italo–Turkish War.