Leo Morandi

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Leo Morandi (September 14 1923 - May 2 2009) was a promoter of the new post-war commercial ceramics industry of Sassuolo, Italy. At first he collaborated with local ceramic producers (Marazzi Group) and in Salerno, Italy (Industries D'Agostino); later, following the sale of a crucial innovative patent to Ceramiche Marazzi(biscuit selection unit), he was able to initiate startup of his own equipment supply business.

In particular ,he used two electrodes in between passing the material to select; if electricity was able to pass it was meaning that the biscuit was no compact so the material was not good for the successive glazing.

Morandi was born in Sassuolo, Italy. The production chain for ceramics, at that time, was very much handcrafted and labour intensive, but thanks to Leo Morandi's inventions there was successful automation of various units. Thanks to word by word of technicians after the initial years he was able to open a distinct efficient production unit . Morandi was a reserved man and doesn’t like publicity ; as he used to say :” words are not facts and the facts doesn’t need words” Typical of his way to do was to involve his workers and his customers in improving his inventions stimulating that spirit of growing that have characterized the ceramic district of Sassuolo in that years.

Ceramic industry equipment examples include: automated floor tile edge glaze remover, automated packaging (floor tiles where historically bound with thin iron wire, before shipment), specialized silk screen machines, the peristaltic pump, the transport line, the hydraulic press, tile overturning mechanism, press reception unit, and glazing applications done with disk booths, basic tile processing elements still in use today.

Founding the Leo Morandi Industry, dedicated to harmonizing and standardizing commercial production throughout the district of Emilia-Romagna, Leo Morandi began exporting these proven automated Italian ceramic industry innovations to Spain, allowing advancement of two primary ceramic industry clusters.

Dissemination of Leo Morandi's innovations, knowledge, and experience precipitated growth and advancement throughout the Sassuolo cluster of Italian ceramic related companies and eventual lead to dominance of the industry, in spite of post-war Italy's economic and political constraints.

He died in Casinalbo.

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  Licence n.424701
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  Licence n.685219
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  Licence n.424701
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  Licence n.424701

Officina Morandi Leo Sassuolo Directory Licensed Ceramic Field

1945 - 1 December Licence n.424701 Device in order to abrade the enamel automatic from the edges of the floor tiles for covering.

1958 - 14 June Licence n.592220 System for the fastening with iron threads of greificate floor tiles or other having materials geometric shapes similar or nearly.

1958 - 1 August Licence n.598125 Machine for taking away automatically from the floor tiles of ceramics the enamel strained on the edges during the humid glazing

1958 - 1 August Licence n.593124 Device in order to brush floor tiles of ceramics with temporary of over and of under with a single passage.

1958 - 2 August Licence n.593126 Automatic machine for taking away from the floor tiles of ceramics not still enamelled the left slobbers from the stamps on the chines.

1958 - 2 August Licence n.593127 Pump for dense liquids particularly for enamel vetroso in watery suspension for the ceramic industry generally.

1958 - 25 September Licence n.595789 Machine in order to recover the vetroso enamel of the tiles that they turn out defective after the humid glazing..

1959 - 6 April Licence n.606642 Procedure in order to manufacture the enameled floor tiles to dulled spout chine .

1960 - 7 April Licence n.629034 Automatic machine in order to collect into a pile ceramic floor tiles humid to the escape from the pressed one.

1961 - 7 April Licence n.646867 Conveyor for ceramic floor tiles.

1961 - 7 April Licence n.646866 Device in order to turn the ceramic floor tiles on the transport.

1961 - 15 April Licence n.647228 Machine in order to divide the ceramic floor tiles second their thickness.

1962 - 28 March Licence n.685219 Hydraulic system for the pressing of material through one pressed set in action from more cylinders technically predisposed the greater part of which self feeding.

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  Morandi's first silk screen machine
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  Morandi's silk screen machines ready for Spain
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  Morandi's third serie silk screen device

1968 - 13 March Licence n.832329 Automatic machine in order to apply serious decorations diagrams to the ceramic and similar floor tiles.

1973 - 6 Decembers Licence n.1001087 Device in order to distribute the ceramic floor tiles making part of a row.

1973 - 6 Decembers Licence 1001086 Device in order to empty the supports of baking of the ceramic tiles. 1978 - 12 April Licence n.1104063 Perfected device to rotary discs for shattering and to uniform distribute substances on superficial in particular enamels to apply in uniform way on ceramic floor tiles .

1978 - 3 July Licence n.28979B Cabin of glazing to rotary discs for shattering and to distribute the enamel uniform to apply on the ceramic floor tiles.

Sources

• Russo Margherita: 'Technical Change and Relations Between Enterprises' (Rosemberg & Sellier, Torino.1996)
• Russo Margherita: 'Industrial District and Services of Transport – the case of the ceramics 1990"
• Lusoli Alberto: "Internationalization of the Districts – the ceramic district of Sassuolo"