Finders Keepers with Lorenzo Bassetti

FINDERS KEEPERS | MASTERS & MUSES | WORLD OF CABANA

Founder of Moltoitaliano and Molto Collectibles, Rome-based collector Lorenzo Bassetti, has spent the past two decades cultivating a personal vision of Italian culture – one that moves fluidly between art, design, craftsmanship and everyday life. Lorenzo shares with Cabana the story of two important objects that have passed through his hands: his greatest find and the piece he'll keep forever.

INTERVIEW BY SARA PIERDONÀ | MASTERS & MUSES | 18 MARCH 2026

Image courtesy Molto Collectibles.

In 2006, Lorenzo Bassetti founded Moltoitaliano, a project devoted to celebrating and promoting the richness of Italian creativity. What began as a cultural initiative evolved into a wider ecosystem that includes editorial projects, collaborations with artists, and Molto Collectibles, a platform through which Bassetti researches, restores and presents objects chosen for their aesthetic and cultural resonance. In 2024 he opened Molto Depositi in Rome, a private showroom housed in a former ATAC depot, presenting vintage design, contemporary art and Edizioni Molto, a small production of objects made with Italian artisans.

A passionate collector since his youth, Bassetti is drawn to objects not only for their beauty, but for the stories, relationships and craftsmanship behind them; his relationship with objects has always been "guided by curiosity rather than strategy", he says. When choosing his Finders Keepers, he reflects on two pieces that hold particular meaning: one that gave birth to an entire project, and another he could never imagine parting with.

Images courtesy Molto Collectibles.

I grew up surrounded by art and books, but the moment that truly marked the beginning of my path as a collector came when I was very young. An uncle gave me a small painting by Gino Severini. At the time I didn’t fully understand its importance, but I remember clearly the feeling of living with an artwork; how it slowly becomes part of your daily life. From that moment on I began looking at objects differently. Not simply as things to own, but as presences capable of shaping a space and the atmosphere of a home.

My Greatest Find: Bamboo Radiator Covers

Looking back, it is interesting how often the most meaningful projects begin from very ordinary circumstances. Sometimes you discover an object that changes your path. Other times, you realize that the object you are looking for simply does not exist yet.

In my case, the object that changed everything was something I was unable to find. While renovating my apartment in Rome some years ago, I became unexpectedly preoccupied with a very simple problem: radiator covers. Radiators are a constant presence in Roman homes, yet finding one that is both functional and beautiful is surprisingly difficult.

Most available solutions felt purely technical - never truly part of the architecture of the room. I wanted something lighter, something that would soften the space rather than hide within it. I began imagining a structure in bamboo with woven cane panels - a material that has always fascinated me for its elegance, flexibility and warmth.

Molto Radiator Cover in Bamboo, Molto Collectibles.

Since I couldn’t find what I had in mind, I drew it. Through that search I met a small artisan workshop near Rome specializing in bamboo craftsmanship. I arrived with a sketch and asked if we could try to build it together. The piece we created became the first Molto radiator cover. What followed was completely unexpected. Over time my relationship with the artisan grew stronger, evolving from a collaboration into a real partnership. Eventually I decided to acquire the workshop itself, allowing us to preserve its knowledge and develop new pieces.

Today that same laboratory produces the objects of Edizioni Molto, our small series of furniture and design pieces made using traditional Italian craftsmanship. For this reason I often think of this radiator cover as my 'greatest find'. Not because it is rare or historic, but because it revealed something essential: the possibility of creating a dialogue between collecting, design and craftsmanship. In a way, this object marks the moment when Molto Collectibles began to move from discovering objects to making them — always guided by the same idea that has inspired my work from the beginning: a belief in the quiet beauty of Italian culture, and in the artisans who keep it alive.

La Cera di Roma by Alessandro Piangiamore. Image courtesy Molto Collectibles.

The Piece I'll Keep Forever: La Cera di Roma by Alessandro Piangiamore

There are many works in my collection that I feel deeply connected to, but one has accompanied me for many years and represents something essential in the way I understand art. It is a work from “La Cera di Roma” by the Italian artist Alessandro Piangiamore. What makes this piece special to me is not only the work itself, but the relationship that surrounds it. I have always believed that collecting should never be a purely transactional act.

For me, it is fundamental to establish a personal dialogue with the artist, to understand their thinking, their process, their way of looking at the world. Alessandro is one of those artists with whom that dialogue developed very naturally. His work has always fascinated me for its ability to transform simple materials into something deeply poetic.

In the series La Cera di Roma, he collects the remains of candles – often gathered from churches in Rome or from the homes of friends – and melts them together to create large panels where the wax settles in unpredictable layers of color and texture. What emerges is something that exists between painting and sculpture. Through this transformation of matter, an object that once had a symbolic function dissolves into a new image – one shaped by chance, gravity, and time.

Image courtesy Molto Collectibles. 

There is a beautiful paradox in Piangiamore’s work: what appears like a painting is actually the result of a conceptual process rooted in material transformation. Reality and imagination overlap, and something deeply ordinary (candle wax) becomes unexpectedly monumental. In Rome, history accumulates slowly, layer after layer. In a way, this work reflects that same stratification – a quiet geography of time, memory and ritual.

But beyond the work itself, this piece also represents a friendship. Over the years Alessandro has become someone with whom I share conversations about art, ideas and the role that artists can play in our cultural landscape. For me this is an essential part of collecting: building relationships with the people who create the works that move us.

The piece hangs in my bedroom in Rome, a place where I see it every day. Among all the works I have collected over time, this is one I could never imagine parting with. Some works you admire, some you collect, and then there are those rare pieces that quietly become part of your life. This is one of them.

On Molto Collectibles 

Over the years my interests expanded across contemporary art, photography, design and craft. I have always preferred meeting artists and makers directly, understanding how something is conceived and brought into the world. That belief - that culture grows through relationships - is also at the heart of Moltoitaliano, the project I founded to promote a contemporary vision of Italian excellence.

Molto Collectibles emerged quite naturally from that same philosophy. At first it was simply a way of sharing pieces I had encountered through research, auctions and galleries. But gradually it became something more: a place where collecting, craftsmanship and production could coexist.