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| The town of Scarperia was founded on
September 8, 1306. It was here, at the foot of the Giogo
Pass, along the road that plowed through the Apennines,
linking Florence with Bologna, that the powerful
municipal authority of Florence identified an ideal
location for the construction of a new castle, to be
called “Castel San Barnaba”. Whether it was due to its
location at the “shoe” (scarpa in Italian) of the
Apennines, or to the steep (ria in Tuscan) climb up to
the Pass, it is probable that the name Scarperia derives
from a contraction of these two word associations. Back
in those days, the town was sited on what was then the
most important road for anyone wishing to cross Italy,
since it linked the road from south-eastern Italy with
the Padanian plain before leading on into Central Europe.
It can certainly be said that Scarperia's location has
proved, time and again, to be decisive in determining
its undulating fortunes over the centuries. The
production of cutting irons has also been crucial to the
town’s development from the outset; this specialization
was perhaps the result of local military requirements or
possibly due to the needs of the local farmers. Whatever
the real reason, there is no doubt that the cutlers of
Scarperia were never short of work, especially with a
continual flow of travelers passing through the town |
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- travelers who would help to
build the European reputation that the town has enjoyed
since as far as back as the 15th century.
For more than two centuries, blades from Scarperia were
renowned as being of unrivaled quality, but when – in
the 18th century – the nobles of the House of Lorraine
commissioned the construction of a new, more northerly
road (called Via della Futa) to afford easier access to
Bologna (and, therefore, also to the Padanian plain and
the rest of Europe), the ancient Giogo Pass suffered a
rapid decline in popularity, cut off, as it now was,
from the vital flow of traffic. A period of deep crisis
ensued. It was only in the second half of the 19th
century that Scarperia’s knives and cutlery started to
experience increasing demand. With the unification of
Italy came numerous orders from all over the country,
and particularly from the south. Because of this
southern influence, the origins of several types of
knives made in Scarperia (the Calabrese, the Napoletano
and the Casertano) can be traced back to the south of
Italy.
The town’s renaissance came to an abrupt halt with the
introduction of the Giolitti Law of 1908, which severely
dented the local economy. The 20th century saw two wars
come and go, as well as numerous attempts to get the
local companies to sign production agreements with each
other, none of which ever came to fruition. The fate of
the hundred or so workshops was sealed.
However, in the 1980s, thanks to the unflagging
commitment of knife experts such as Luciano Salvatici,
Giancarlo Baronti and Silvio Milani, the cutting irons
museum was inaugurated and several exhibitions were
staged, in a concerted attempt to promote the
rediscovery of Scarperia’s ancient art. As a result, the
reputation for the quality of the knives made here has
been consolidated once again, and they are now rightly
celebrated throughout the world. |
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