We have written about projects, renovations, advice, and even tax breaks, but never about our history.
A story in which company and family are inextricably intertwined, in which the love of a father for a son also passes through the sharing of the secrets of a craft that is now rare and, for this reason, even more precious. It is a very long story, which begins around 1940 and begins with a hammer for stones, dry stone walls, sweat, and nothing else.
We are in the countryside of Martina, where there is a boy named Francesco Serra (mostly remembered as "Mest Cicc") who works every day to get by. Every day, he, the hammer, the sweat, and the dry stone walls.
Every day.
Years go by and, more and more often, he is asked for small renovations of Trulli: in a short time, he becomes a master trullaro expert and careful, which makes the technique of "scuci e cuci" his strong point. In the '70s, two of his four sons, now grown up, Donato and Antonio, undertake the same path of life and 'climb' with him on the Trulli.
It is 1971 when Francesco 'mest Cicc' and his son Donato, armed only with a hammer, meet for the first time Alberobello and its Trulli, with the chickens free to run around the dusty streets of the Monti area and the Trulli that slowly are demolished to make room for the 'clean and angular' concrete. From this moment on, Francesco 'mest Cicc', Donato, and the Trulli of Alberobello will never separate again.
Become a master since the beginning Donato, takes over the company and restores Trulli in every area of Alberobello and Valle d'Itria, from the most distant and hidden farms to the central trulli of the Monti area (he counts in his life to have worked and restored over 1,000 Trulli).
He also marries and with his wife they have 3 children: one of these, Francesco, after years away from home, returns to Puglia and decides to follow in his father's footsteps, just as Donato had done decades before. Francesco quickly learns the secrets and the technique of the family, a family that has always used the technique of 'scuci e cuci' using the true conservative recovery of the trulli and every little stone.
Now Edilserra has grown up.
Donato, Francesco, their hammers and those of a dozen young workers between masters and laborers, the usual sweat, continue to pass on their experience and their technique, as it has been done for 3 generations, with the hope of safeguarding and protecting still for a long time a timeless heritage.