Draft:Bernardo Bagardi

Bernardo Bagardi (born July 19, 1891, Vitolini, Tuscany; died November 21, 1922, Geneva) was an Italian Master shoemaker (Maestro artigiano della calzatura) and an artist of genius talent, who dedicated his abilities to creating new shoe models and refining existing ones.

According to tradition, Bernardo Bagardi was born in July 1891, near Vitolini, in the municipality of Vinci, Tuscany. His father, Antonio Bagardi, was not a wealthy man; he made a living from agriculture. However, he was distinguished by his high intellect and love for art, which was reflected in his paintings. He mainly painted portraits, which served as an additional source of income for the family. His mother, Maria Teresa Bagardi, was excellently literate, knew old Latin, and also showed a great love for art. She often served as her husband's model and source of inspiration. Antonio also drew clothing and shoe models, created sketches, and had many notes, the fate of which was later decided by a tragic incident. There is also a version that there were genetic links between their family and the family of the great Leonardo da Vinci.

Little Bernardo often played in his father's workshop, and during one such play, he reworked a drawing his father had created, which depicted his mother. When Antonio noticed this, he did not get angry with the child; instead, he gave him a pencil and asked him to draw his father. Little Bernardo, within a few minutes, created a unique portrait of his father using only a black pencil. His father, overwhelmed with surprise and joy, could not hide his tears. He rushed out into the yard like a madman and loudly shouted, "Gena non amittuntur" (Genes are not lost - Latin). No one knows what he meant at that moment—the genes of the great Leonardo or his own genes.

Bernardo displayed an astonishing talent for painting. By the age of 7, he was already sitting in the workshop with his father, helping him with remarkable interest and composure to draw clothing and shoe models, inventing new shapes and designs. It was enough for someone to tell him what or how they wanted something, and he would instantly transfer it to paper with incredible speed.

But one day, the tragic event occurred that completely changed the genius's fate and life. His father received an order from relatives of the Medici family who were visiting Tuscany. He was supposed to paint the wife of a nobleman. According to tradition, he executed this order so brilliantly that even Enrico Ridolfi (director of the Uffizi Gallery) became interested. The fantasy depicted in this painting proved fatal, as Antonio expressed the lady's overly exposed chest and arms, which became a pretext for her husband's jealousy. The nobleman came to Antonio and set fire to the workshop. Enraged, Antonio rushed towards him with an axe in hand, but the master's companions killed him with a shot in the back. His mother, Maria Teresa Bagardi, who was trying to save her husband, also perished in this incident. When they saw that both were dead, they started searching for the child, who was nearby in a chapel with a wandering monk, who occasionally read him passages from the Bible.

When the entire homestead caught fire, little Bernardo rushed out of the monk's cell and watched with his own eyes as the flames devoured everything.

The enraged nobleman, with blood on his hands, searched for little Bernardo for a long time to extinguish any potential chance of a vendetta and thus calm himself. But the monk Pantaleimon carefully hid Bernardo, realizing the approaching danger. He also helped little Bernardo to quickly leave Tuscany, sending him to Geneva to his distant relative Jean Pierre Michel, who owned leather processing workshops and a shoemaking business.

Little Bernardo diligently began to learn the trade. Thanks to his astonishing talent, he quickly caught Jean Pierre's attention, who then handed him over to a master shoemaker to further refine his innate talent. Due to the tragedy caused by the vicissitudes of fate, the little genius, exiled to another country, was forced to direct his artistic talent and genius in a completely different direction, which we can call the creation of shoe designs and models. The bright mind and future of the little genius were confined from the boundless realm of art to the framework of a craftsman.

But as we know, gold is gold everywhere. Within a few years, Bernardo, now a young man, was the chief shoemaker's heir and right-hand man.

In 1911, he married the beautiful Ilona Franciska Kovács. Soon after their marriage, they opened a small workshop together, where they sewed beautiful and most durable shoes, as well as women's accessories and clothing created from his wife Ilona's designs.

When the First World War began, the International Committee of the Red Cross in Switzerland placed orders for shoes and clothing specifically with the young Bernardo and Ilona's workshop. They produced items for both the Red Cross staff themselves (uniforms and accessories) and for humanitarian supplies for the war-affected population and the wounded.

They even created special shoes and equipment for the Allied partisans and resistance fighters. Soon, legends emerged about these shoes, claiming that those who wore them were immune to bullets. The basis for this belief was that the shoes were crafted using a special technique: they didn't get wet, offered incredible grip on any surface, and, as the fighters of the time used to say, a person stood in them "like a statue." Since bullets can't harm a statue, this likely became the foundation of this legend or belief.

In 1922, Bernardo fell ill with an unknown disease and passed away within a few months.

His widowed wife, left alone with three young children, continued the family's main business. Bernardo's ashes were kept for a long time in their main family workshop. When the Second World War ended, the family returned to Italy, where his ashes were scattered in the courtyard of St. Pantaleimon's Basilica, at his birthplace, as a final expression of honor and boundless love from his family.