Anghiari is less than an hour away from La Massa – a very easy and pretty drive and a wonderful old town
When you arrive, you easily park at the bottom of the hill and then take a lift up to the old town. This takes you up through the hillside and you exit in the heart of the old town – a magical Tuscan Town and perfect for exploration.
Last time I was there I had a good lunch at Cantina del Granduca (telephone: +39 0575 788275) – I seem to remember excellent Minestra di Farro.
Pictures of the town are set out below – click the thumbnail for a larger image:
Kindly written by La Massa Guest Janet Falcon from the United Kingdom
– a definite must for a visit, both for the town of Anghiari and the Busatti workshops founded and run by the Busatti-Sassolini family since 1842.
In the second half of 1700 Niccolò and Giuseppe Busatti, who came from Valdarno, opened a bakery at Porta Fiorentina in Anghiari
Their initiative was successful at once so that Niccolò’s son Mario opened an emporium in Sommo del Borgo della Croce in Anghiari.
Mario Busatti, born in 1800, enlarged the shop, introducing the first looms while his brothers carried on the bakery and opened another one in Borgo della Croce.
As years passed by, the firm grew, thanks to some families of the village buying looms from Mario Busatti and to whom he supplied hemp and linen to be woven and sold by the yard in his shop.
Gorgeous textiles, hand made fabrics made out of precious fibres are used to create home-linens, outfits, curtains, rugs, towels, cushions, aprons and tablecloths in a vast range of colours and workmanship. Textiles are created for country houses, hotels and private homes. To complete the range, Busatti now produces a selected collection of accessories in earthenware and glassware matching their fabrics and style.
In the workshops ancient carding machines work the wools of the Apennines, which stretch between the Tiber and the Arno rivers.
Shuttle looms, sons of the first industrial Revolution, slowly insert weft-threads giving to fabrics that softness, which nowadays has been all but lost.
Skilled hands put the finishing touches and embroider these products with hemstitch, embroidery and lace.
Nowadays, Busatti carries several complementary manufacturing cycles by spinning and weaving fibres of different textures together, for instance linen and wool or hemp and wool, though carrying on Busatti’s renowned traditional and historical pure linen and linen-cotton blends.
NB:
It is not obvious when you first visit the store that you can visit the workshop, but you will hear the looms working beneath you. Just ask at the counter – we had a fascinating tour by a delightful young lady, who was in fact the great great grand-daughter of Giuseppe Busatti. The place is steeped in history; you can watch the weaving as it takes place and then can understand the high prices that are being asked for the fabrics.
