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Art runs on a knife's edge

At Scarperia, in Mugello, making knives is an ancient tradition which is handed down through the family. Walking through the streets just fifty years ago, you would hear anvils beating on every corner and from a few simple implements emerged knives famous throughout Europe. It was merchants, centuries ago, who took the cutting irons of Scarperia abroad when they made a stop at its castle, which was on the road to Northern Europe.
Today there are only three knife producers in the village, while in many shops they are sold but not produced.
The Coltelleria Berti has been working since 1895 and, over time, the aid of machines has been added to the production of totally hand-made pieces, particularly for mass produced products. "In the past," says the current owner - "the knife was very useful for farmers and was an indispensable work tool for them; today many purchasers are genuine knife-lovers who buy them because they are beautiful." A lot of attention is paid, in fact, to the choice of materials which the pieces are made with and boxwood and horn are much used.
The Coltelleria Saladini is a young firm, founded only four years ago, but one which is continuing a family tradition of more than a hundred years, when the work was still done in the workshop. It produces medium-high quality knives, particularly the clasp knives of Italian tradition. It also boasts a highly valuable series of table and pocket cigar cutters and produces, on commission, totally hand-made knives, personally designed. In this case too the handle material is valuable: ox, buffalo and deer horn, or olive or boxwood.
Finally there is the Coltelleria Conaz. Today, here as well, machines have taken away some of the manual labour but there are pieces which are still entirely hand-made. The series of historical knives is interesting, created from old 18th and 19th century models or lifted from Twenties or Thirties catalogues. They are all knives for work and were used for defence or attack and are mostly sought after now by collectors.