ARTISANSHIP, BACK TO THE FUTURE
Over the centuries, culture and work, art and artisanship have deeply merged in our Apennines. It is enough to think of the "pietra serena", a tradition that bewitched the Renaissance sculptors and that, still today, is continued not only by artists, but also by craftsmen.

And what about the thousand year old mosaic-art, the ceramic, the metal forging, the precious warps of the looms and the ancient printed cloths?
Or the work of wood from the one finely chiselled by the cabinet-makers to the fir-trunks of the Casentino Forests transported, by river, to the Tuscan shipyards and workshops to become the mainmasts of galleys or the trusses of the Florence Cathedral?

It was artisanship (today we would call it small business) together with agriculture and the "cultivation" of the wood that, over the centuries, turned our rough and beautiful, hard and bewitching Apennines into a place to live.

Here artisanship has always been tied with labour, the defence of the traditions, the service to the community and the territory. For this reason, a reasoned "Guide" to the shops and the artisan crafts of our Apennines is an instrument of special value and high interest not only for the field operators, but for everybody.

THE GLOBAL MARKET
The production system of the markets globalization transfers most of the economic wealth to the large distribution axes setting aside those production areas that are not crossed by these flows.
At the same time, to support its own production and distribution system, globalization needs products whose "niche" value is a synonym of "quality", typical of artisan activities.

TYPICALNESS OF THE PRODUCTION SYSTEMS
Aside from big competitions, there are small sized businesses belonging to homogeneous territorial systems -like the Romagnese Apennines- able to propose a "composite" offer. This is made not only by products with "typical" characteristics, but also by artisan activities that have been preserved thanks to that entrepreneurial determination that wants to transfer its "art" to the future generations.

THE ECONOMIC GROWTH
Modern technology, and especially telematics, enables local economic systems to interact with other systems and the global market, often subverting that trend, typical of macroeconomic systems, that drives the economic flows from centre to periphery.

STRATEGIC REPOSITIONING
In this scenario made of multiform opportunities of offer and demand, also the production system of the Romagnese Artisanship resolved upon developing new programs of improvement and promo-commercial actions to reposition its image and its production dynamism.

FROM PAST TO FUTURE
Going through new valorization paths, the territory and the businesses take the challenge of the global market without freeing of their past since it represents a unique and unmistakable "value" that identifies the territory.
Playing the card of the valorization of the "new economy" means highlighting the characteristics and the production typicalness of the individuals, firmly tied to the resources of the territory and the artisan traditions.

QUALITY
The collective identity of the Romagnese Apennines represents the "value" of the territory, the expression of those production qualities that were the proud of our fathers. But today this heritage often turns, unfortunately, into uncertainty.
The "know-how", the art suffice no more to support the internal and external market; these values must be organically modulated to come there where the market demand is stronger.

COMPETITIVENESS
The route of production increase to new markets goes through the commercial transformation of the businesses into a collective "system" where individuals have and offer advantages without perverting the nature of their origins. At last, territory-oriented policies have indicated the ways to simplify the transmission of these values, that is also a transfer of artisan "know-how", to new markets.

THE VIRTUAL VILLAGE
Among the strategic actions aimed at improving the economic system of the Romagnese Apennines, there is the creation of a "Virtual Village" re-built according to the rural tradition of this territory. In this structure, the commercial "valorization" of the area, oriented to the global market, takes on concrete form. Entering this large virtual container gives the impression of surfing between history and reality, between nature and tradition. Visiting the artisan shops one will be provided technical and commercial information. This "Apennines Trade centre" also proposes new and alternative forms of tourism oriented to minor centres whose rhythms and styles of life allow for the fruition of natural environments and the re-discovery of cultures and traditions of Another Romagna that seemed to be lost forever.