— Web Design · Lovable · IT / EN / ZH
Bottega MarcoAurelio
Where Metal Is Reborn
A goldsmith workshop hidden in Rome's historic center. By appointment only. One artisan. Pieces made from scratch that don't exist anywhere else. The challenge: building a digital presence that felt as deliberate as the work itself.
↑ The homepage: a deliberate darkness. No products above the fold. Only the name, a subtitle, and a single invitation to discover.
Hired to
Design and build a site for a Roman goldsmith — minimal, multilingual.
Ended up
Defined the brand tone, named the 'Baratto' concept, structured the information architecture, and built the full site in Lovable with IT / EN / ZH support.
1
Goldsmith. 0 employees. All work done by hand.
3
Languages — IT, EN, ZH. Hidden Rome, global reach.
100%
Unique pieces. Nothing from a mold. Ever.
Marco is a goldsmith in Rome's Centro Storico — Via dei Cappellari, a street that has housed artisans for centuries. He works alone. Access is by appointment only. Every piece he makes is unique, built from scratch around the stone, not the other way around.
He had no digital presence. Some tourists found him by word of mouth or wandering into the street. His Chinese clients — a significant part of his business — found him through personal connections. The brief was simple: make the workshop findable without making it feel commercial.
↑ The 'La Bottega' section of the site. Photographed at the bench, no staging.
The key design decision was to show the hands, not the product. Most jewelry sites lead with polished shots on white backgrounds. Bottega MarcoAurelio starts with a goldsmith's hands at work, metal shavings visible, tools in frame. It signals: this is made here, by this person, right now.
The information architecture deliberately slows the user down. There is no "buy now." There is no price visible at first glance. The visitor discovers the goldsmith, then the jewelry, then the process, then the contact.
This sequencing was intentional. Marco doesn't want casual inquiries. He wants clients who already understand what they're getting into.
The standout feature of the site is the Baratto (barter) page. Marco accepts broken or forgotten silver — mismatched earrings, bent cutlery, snapped chains — weighs it, and transforms it into something new.
This is not a gimmick. It's a genuine service rooted in Roman goldsmithing tradition — and it's the single biggest differentiator against jewelry retailers. No chain store does this.
The page copy: "Portaci il tuo argento, così com'è. Anche rotto." ("Bring us your silver, just as it is. Even broken.") The tagline: "Cambiagli la forma. Dagli un nuovo significato." ("Change its shape. Give it new meaning.")
↑ The Baratto page — the most emotionally resonant part of the site, and the one that generates the most direct inquiries.
↳ Why not a standard 'services' page?
A standard services list would have commoditized the work. The Baratto concept needed its own page because it's not a service — it's a philosophy. Objects have memory. A goldsmith can honor that.
The site supports three languages: Italian (primary), English (for international tourists and expats in Rome), and Chinese Simplified (for Marco's existing Chinese clientele). The language switcher is minimal — a single flag at top right — because the content doesn't change character between languages. Slow luxury translates directly.
Most websites try to remove friction. This one adds deliberate friction. No immediate pricing. No instant booking form. No chatbot. The site is an act of curation — if you get to the contact page, you're already the right kind of client. That's a design success, not a conversion failure.
I would add a small gallery of past commissions with client stories — even anonymous ones. The Baratto concept is powerful in text, but photographs of the "before" silver and the finished piece would make it visceral. The emotional proof is already there on the bench. It just needs to be captured.
The right digital presence
for a craftsman is not a store.
It's a door.
Client: Bottega MarcoAurelio · Rome, Italy · Built with Lovable