Artemide

Tolomeo Maxi

Brought out in 1987 and designed for Artemide by Michele De Lucchi with Giancarlo Fassina, the Tolomeo was an immediate bestseller, consolidating a working relationship that continues to this day. Inspired by traditional balanced arm lamps like the famous Naska Loris, his challenge was to combine an iconic and “domestic” form with innovative technologies and materials, adapting it to a wide variety of uses and settings. The first table version has multiplied over the years into an endless range of variations, the most recent of which is the Tolomeo Maxi.

“I’d say that rather than a lamp Tolomeo is a formula, a philosophy of the product. In recent years lighting technology has undergone a radical modification. Not only has the light source been replaced, but the whole mode of its conception has changed. And this is precisely what makes it so surprising and almost miraculous that the Tolomeo has been able to adapt to these changes. Originally it was designed for the traditional incandescent bulb, but then we made numerous other versions, with halogen, gas discharge, energy-efficient bulbs, compact fluorescent bulbs with long tubes, etc. As light sources emerged that seemed to have potential, we tried to adapt the head of the lamp to the new kind.”