Studies of the inlaid woodwork of Sorrento have above all documented the work of important local craftsmen: Luigi Gargiulo and Michele Grandville. Little mention has been made of the Regia School of Art for inlaid woodwork and carving, established in Sorrento in 1886. The only references are to Neoclassical-style furniture, made by the school under the direction of Francesco Grandi (1886-1915). The activities of the 20th century are almost unknown; a time when, following the restart of courses suspended because of the Great War, the school had two strongly resolute periods under the direction of Ivo Francescon (1920-1935) and Roberto Pane (1939-1945). A deeper understanding of this period is even more justified by the decorative theme introduced to the school by Pane, new compared to decoration used by local inlayers in the past and strictly linked with the Sorrento area, especially its environmental and architectural emergence. Roberto Pane, before becoming director of the School of Art in Sorrento, using a wide variety of technical methods to produce drawings, etchings, photos, paintings, texts and films, had produced an in-depth documentation of both well-known and lesser-known places in the Bay of Naples, in particular the Sorrento peninsula. Inlaid woodwork is therefore the later technical means used by Pane with an impact on the extensive local environmental heritage which, at the end of the 1930s, could still have been saved. Roberto Pane’s etchings and watercolours depicting the coastlines of the bay, the rural scenes characterised by rich vegetation, the glimpses framed by building elements typical of Mediterranean architecture, became the recurring themes of inlaid decoration by the school’s students, alternating the chiaroscuro tones of natural wood. Over the years the vast artistic production produced by Pane on the Sorrento peninsula, among which are furniture and inlaid wood objects, has become of greater worth, a historic reminder of areas largely destroyed after the 1950s by widespread and badly o ganised urban development. Unfortunately, so far the numerous studies carried out on Sorrento and in particular on the activity of Roberto Pane have never delved deeply into his cultural commitment in the “Sorrento” period. The Museobottega della Tarsialignea (Inlaid Woodwork Museum), interested in the historical documentation of little known local craftwork, has completed the necessary study. By way of an exhibition and the accompanying catalogue, the many aspects of the “Sorrento” period of Roberto Pane have been brought back to life as part of the much wider project of documenting the Regia Scuola d’Arte in Sorrento. The exhibition, at the Museobottega della Tarsialignea di Sorrento, was inaugurated in December 2007 and will close on 15 June 2008.