Filippo Sorcinelli is an all-round artist, musician, stylist and brilliant creator of the most unusual fragrances. He is originally from Mondolfo, where he maintains his atelier, but is now known throughout Italy and the world. He owes his inspiration to a sort of “divine enlightenment” that came in the very first years of his life. «When I was 4 or 5 years old, I often accompanied my mother to clean the church in Mondolfo. She was a volunteer and I was fascinated by that place: think how a church can appear to such a small child.” And also very curious: «I ran around the benches, opened drawers, smelled the air thick with incense, admired the sacred robes and vestments. Until one day, I found a bunch of ancient keys that opened a door that overlooked dusty stairs and I went up until I found the organ in front of me. Obviously he hadn’t played for a long time and little by little I learned that it was necessary to turn a huge wheel to give him breath again.”
The potential of music
The first time that Filippo felt the potential of that instrument was during a trip with his family to San Vito, in Rimini: «I was literally struck by it and my aunt, the one who helped me a lot in continuing my studies, managed to organize some lessons with the very priest who was playing it that day. I was the first student at the Mondolfo music school.” And so it was that Filippo was admitted to the Pesaro Conservatory: «It had been a natural path, full of beauty, but I had to interrupt my studies due to a small accident. I broke my finger and wasn’t able to take the exams, but that failure led me to reach a higher goal: I took the exams at the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in the Vatican and there my beautiful experience in Rome began.” But in reality his experience had already begun: «I was 13 years old and I was playing alone inside the church, when a gentleman who had been listening to me for a good half hour approached me and said to me: “Congratulations, I’m I would like you to come and play the organ with us.” I replied that I should have asked my parents, too young to move independently, where was his church then? Well, he was the parish priest of Fano Cathedral! He arrived on the day I was supposed to play in Fano, but I didn’t know that it would coincide with a mass officiated by the bishop himself.”
The emotion of that news wasn’t enough: «The bishop blessed the whole church with incense, the altar, the crucifix and… the organ, because he hadn’t played for a long time. It was a very moving thing for me, because then all this became my stylistic signature: as a distributor of musical and olfactory emotions.” At the same time as the Pesaro Conservatory, Filippo also attended the Fano Art Institute, «with teachers who were true artists». A non-stop adolescence, between musical and artistic studies. For 9 organist of the cathedral of Fano, during the Jubilee he was one of the organists who alternated at St. Peter’s. Another event marked his fate: «A friend announced to me that he would soon take vows. Excited, I decided to give him the chasuble, the garment for the first mass.” To explain all this, however, we must return for a moment to Filippo’s childhood, spent in the historic tailoring shop in Mondolfo next to his mother, aunt and sister: «As a child I loved being there. I grew up in a simple and genuine way. And I owe my artistic journey entirely to my family who believed in me. In fact, in middle school, a teacher advised my parents against letting me continue my studies: preconceptions dictated by the simple origins of my family. I saw that teacher of hers again in the pews of the Cathedral of Fano, where she was looking at me with wide eyes.”
The sacred vestments
But the dress for his friend determined his original career as a stylist of sacred vestments: «We created together this number 0 which he wore just while I was playing in the cathedral in Fano and I saw the amazed faces of all the priests, for an artefact that stylistically was a little distant from the ecclesiastical fashion of the time. Word of mouth reached the bishop of Pesaro, Monsignor Angelo Bagnasco who commissioned me to make his miter. Thus was born a splendid friendship and it was he who supported the opening of my company which brought me to the doors of the Sistine Chapel, when I was called by Benedict XVI.” Then the clothes prepared for Ratzinger and Francis earned him the nickname of tailor to the popes.
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