Hand-Fitted Leather Gloves at the Scuola del Cuoio

The Scuola del Cuoio — the School of Leather — was founded in 1950 in a Franciscan friary behind the Santa Croce basilica. Franciscan monks and Florentine leather artisans started it together to teach orphans a trade after the war. Today it is the finest leather school in Italy: a working atelier where apprentices learn to make bags, belts, wallets, and above all, gloves, using techniques unchanged in six hundred years.

Florentine leather is distinct because of the vegetable tanning process — using natural tannins from tree bark rather than industrial chemicals — that produces a leather which is stiffer when new, but develops a deep patina and softens to your hand over years of use. A glove made here from Nappa lamb leather, fitted to your hand measurements, will outlast a decade of cheaper alternatives and improve with every winter wearing. The fitting itself is a brief ceremony: your hand measured at the knuckle and palm, the leather cut and stitched in front of you.

The leather district around Via della Vigna Nuova and the Oltrarno neighbourhood also rewards exploration. San Lorenzo Market has good-value options for belts and bags, though quality varies enormously — feel the weight of the leather, smell it, and be cautious of anything priced below the cost of the materials. The rule in Florence is simple: if it is cheap, it is not leather. If it is leather, it was not cheap to make.