The long history of the Rampant Lion on a palm tree awarding winners

His name is Cristiano Moschini, born in 1960: he is once again (with his company A. Santi in a narrow street in the centre of Venice) the creator of the famous Sanremo Festival Trophy. He is the third creator, after his father and grandfather. It all started in the 1960s with grandfather Vittorio. He had a great entrepreneurial mentality and spent two or three months a year in Liguria procuring new customers outside Venice. So much so that his first clients were the municipality of Sanremo and the autonomous tourist companies of the Ligurian beaches. He made tokens for the Casino, rosettes for the international dog show and much more.

Cristiano Moschini, il creatore del famoso Trofeo del Festival di Sanremo.

Today, to make the Festival Trophy, one has to bring together different crafts and professional skills. There is the smelter who makes the lion's body and the chiseller who prepares the base. In Grandpa Vittorio's time, it was the sculptor - a silversmith-chiseller - who made the Trophy. Over the years, the subject has been renewed and transformed, it has become more scenic, with the palm tree with many coloured branches, the trunk made of handmade rings and more slender than in the past, the case has become larger. However, these are still unique pieces created just for the Festival. "Here, in the workshop, many tourists come in who know about this Trophy and ask me about it. Each time I explain that I cannot sell copies, of any size'. In the workshop at the back of Cristiano Moschini's Venetian workshop, one discovers so much more. He has been making the Golden Lion of the Venice International Film Festival for decades. The winged lions that in each edition are awarded to actors, actresses, producers and directors at the final ceremony come from here. Needless to say, this too was grandfather Vittorio's idea.