This is a historic enterprise which has operated since 1863, the year of its founding, under the shadow of the Apuan mountains while dedicating itself to qualitative excellence and proposing with success its own exclusive products on a worldwide scale. The enterprise in question is Nicoli & Lyndam Sculptures, which still maintains its art workshops in the centre of Carrara, thus giving continuity to the long-standing tradition of the artistic working of marble, granite and similar stones, and guaranteeing professional workmanship of a very high qualitative level.
The business was founded by the forefather, Carlo Nicoli. Born in Carrara on 4 October 1843, he then enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts where, starting in 1860, he succeeded in distinguishing himself and winning various prizes. In 1864, he finished his studies, and was awarded the Gold Medal in the Artistic Creation Competition with a relief on the “Death of Pompey”, which elicited the praise of the panel of judges directed by Ferdinando Pelliccia. Nicoli was then sent to Florence to work under the direction of Giovanni Dupré.
He returned to Carrara in 1875, and was appointed honorary Professor of the Academy. Around 1876, the large workshop of San Francesco was realised, with modern departments of sculpture and architecture. Here, that same year, the statue of “Cervantes” was realised for the writer’s native city of Alcalà de Henares, and in 1878 the seated version was also modelled. The creator of many successful works during the course of the 1880s, Carlo Nicoli communicated that impetus to his own workshop, thanks to the esteem he garnered as an artist and to his great technical skill. The habitual visits of great artists of the time (Dupré, Ximenes, Piccolini, Bistolfi, Allar, etc.) continues uninterruptedly still today, under the management of his great-grandson, and can boast the names of Arturo Martini, Moore, Messina, Viani, Signori, César, and Ipousteguy. Carlo Nicoli was no banal artist; he was endowed with a courageous imagination that was inclined to  monumental dimensions and great effects. He died on 2 November 1915 at the age of 72, in his vineyard at the Belvedere of Avenza.
The advent of the second generation (with his son Gino, a gifted entrepreneur as well as sculptor and honorary Professor at the Carrara Academy of Fine Arts, and with Ruggero Nicoli) enabled Studi Nicoli to reinforce the industrial facility with a team of workmen formed in the workshop by their own fathers. The cultural revolution, which was kept at a distance by  other sculpture studios that were more attached to traditional techniques, thus determining their closing, implied instead the continuity and central presence of Studi Nicoli in the unpredictable events of contemporary plastic art. The Nicoli Studio was the only one to survive that great epoch-making change, and today can boast 147 years of history to its credit. Today, the business organisation of Nicoli & Lyndam Carrara is set up in such a way as to be able to take on important orders while coping with the possibilities of limited delivery times. As a conclusion to a long-lasting and indubitable international vocation, in 2000 Studi Nicoli were awarded the title of UNESCO Site Bearer of a Message of Peace. In 1998, the firm assumed the name of Nicoli & Lyndam Sculptures S.r.l., without changing either its main office or object, however. The two daughters, Carola and Francesca, have collaborated with the Governing Director, Carlo Nicoli. Carola has a degree as an interpreter and simultaneous translator from the University of Geneva, while her sister  Francesca has a Doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Bologna and a Masters in Sculpture from the Academy of Fine Arts in the same city. Still today, artists come from all over the world to work at Nicoli & Lyndam Sculptures, and develop their works directly in marble while availing themselves of the support of valid assistants or helpers. Both original works of great living artists and  reproductions of classical models of the history  of art can be followed with the greatest care in all the production phases, from the design of the sculptural object or aesthetic ambient to the packing, transport, and placement.