The Castrucci workshop in Prague was founded by Emperor Rudolf II, who was a fervent admirer of the new technique of commesso di pietre dure (Florentine mosaic). In Italy this technique of assembling pictures from cut gemstones was revived to perfection at the end of the 16th century.

Rudolf’s attempts to attract a master to Prague were initially unsuccessful. But he was able to win over the Florentine artist Cosimo Castrucci as part of a costly commission to the Medici workshops for the production of a resplendent table (now lost), which was praised by Boetius de Boodt as the eighth wonder of the world. The completion of this commission demanded regular journeys between Bohemia and Florence. At first Cosimo Castrucci was the liaison person.

After his death his son from his first marriage, Giovanni Castrucci, is thought to have taken over the Prague workshop, as he was appointed royal jeweller in 1610. Giovanni’s son-in-law, Giuliano di Piero Pandolfini, was the supervising master of the last years of the workshop, although Ottavio Miseroni was in charge. The workshop was dissolved at the latest after his death in 1624, its most important patron Rudolf II long dead.

The historical importance of the Prague workshop in the history of commesso di pietre dure lay in the development and individual adaptation of this special method of depicting objects. The impressionistic reproduction of an idealised landscape through colour patches and the natural pattern of the stones is typical of Castrucci style.