about

Archaeologist Piero Luigi Carboni and architect Pierangelo Marengo have been running their gallery in the heart of Brera, a traditional artists’ district in the heart of Milan, since December 1999.

The reason why, the reason at the root of their activity lies in the fact that they themselves have been passionate collectors, and in part they still are.

Their story.

It was 1986. The taste that unites them for a line, a shape, a color is the trigger. They decided to attend the Polytechnic School of Design, a Master.

Until in the spare time, often weekends stolen from the study and the profession, they began to start their business which was surprisingly an important success. The temptation to totally immerse yourself in this adventure was immediate. The beginnings required a strong dose of commitment and risk, which has been promptly repaid.

The Italian market sees Il Segno del Tempo present at the most important antiques exhibitions, Brixia, La Reggia di Portici, Trieste, the Internazionale in Milan.

Attending the United States first out of passion and then to broaden the horizons of antiquarian research will lead to the natural step of participation in the most important exhibitions in the United States such as San Francisco, Miami, Chicago, New York, Houston, and in the rest of the world such as London, Madrid, Barcelona and Tokyo.

The decision to open a gallery was an immediate consequence. Il Segno del Tempo was born in 1991, and finding its name was not easy. Each object is a sign of its time. And their world is reflected in their unusual gallery, unpredictable, stimulating in a transversal way, for the collector the decorator the child who is always captured by it.

The business grows. The fruit of their research finds maximum satisfaction for Pierangelo and Pier Luigi in the contact established with customers, who become friends with whom to share experiences and knowledge. The doors of the gallery welcome onlookers, decorators, enthusiasts, collectors who often reciprocate with the welcome in their homes, to share their collections.

On their way, the ability to ‘creatively’ intuit the possible evolution of the gallery path, always full of new stimuli, was very important. The temporal range is wide, proceeding from the seventeenth century to get to the contemporary and a passion strongly oriented to the theme of the Wunderkammer, the unusual.

But the leitmotif of their research has always been the walking stick and Pierangelo and Pier Luigi are internationally recognized as points of reference. This is the theme around which they organized ‘Canemania 2010’ in Milan.

The biennial conference was born in the United States, and had already taken place in Salem, Atlanta, Napa Valley. The conference group of about 150 participants is made up of the greatest collectors and antique dealers specialists in the world of walking sticks.

In collaboration with the proprietary collectors, they have dealt with the publication of two volumes relating to extraordinary private collections. The first, Vertical Art: the Enduring Beauty of Antique canes, is a fascinating journey into the world of passion and excellence in an extraordinary collection of walking sticks unique in the world.

The second book, Buckle up. Two centuries of buckles from the Pennasilico collection,constitutes an important testimony of the history of the costume through a magnificent collection of buckles. The choice to give maximum emphasis to photographic rendering and composition was made possible thanks to the precious collaboration of the photographic artist, Umberto Barone, to whom our heartfelt thanks go.

They have been passionately involved in the creation of exhibitions, inside and outside the gallery, such as the exhibition Il teatro della tavola, at the Chiossetto space in Milan, held in 2015

where the theme of the Wunderkammer marries the ritual of the Renaissance banquet in setting up the table, as then a real theater of power reinterpreted also with the precious help of those who created magnificent and sculptural origami, the artist Uroš Mihić.

A very fascinating exhibition curated by them was Portraits, Kiril Dushev, the intense soul of the portrait yesterday and today. Held at SPAZIOBIGSANTAMARTA in Milan in 2017. The exhibition compared portraits distant from each other in time in a continuous dialogue with the fascinating works of the extraordinary artist, the painter Kiril Dushev.

In addition to the sector associations, as of 2011 the gallery is a member of 1stdibs, The Most Beautiful Things on Earth, which dedicated to them the article A Good Sign reported at the following link: https://www.1stdibs.com/introspective-magazine/il-segno-del-tempo/

With a cordial greeting