Being somewhat of a knife collector and realizing they made excellent gifts for our children we seek for these master artisans on our travels.
Having been successful in purchasing handcrafted knives in both Argentina and Spain, we thought to search for knives while in Italy. We left Rome and Venice empty handed, but on to Florence. While sightseeing in Florence we continued to ask about local knife makers. We were given the names of two with generalized directions to their shops. One was near Ponte Vecchio Bridge (Google Maps) describes it as “Picturesque medieval arched river bridge with Roman origins, lined with jewelry & souvenir shops” and the other very close to the neighborhood where we were staying. We continued our quest, walking through the city and asking various shop owners to no avail.
After 3 days of shopping and searching we disappointingly figured it just wasn’t meant to be. As we returning to our hotel, we stopped at a shipping store to discuss the possibility of shipping the wine we had amassed while in Italy. In the discussion, we were lamenting our failure to locate the knife maker in the neighborhood. The shipping store owner says, “He uses us to ship for him all the time. In fact you can see his shop from the sidewalk in front of our store.” We walk outside and he points to the other side of the square and says, “He’s right over there.”
We had been ALL OVER that neighborhood and had actually walked past it and never recognized it was a knife shop. In our defense, it was a small store front, and at first glance it wasn’t obvious.
Fabio Figus Knife Shop
Image by Google Maps
As we step inside there are knives on display. The quality appears to be superb. A young man by the name of Fabio Figus, is creating a knife. He is a well known knife maker in Florence (Fiorenza), Italy. He doesn’t speak much English and we don’t speak any real Italian, but that didn’t stop either one of us from figuring out how to order the knives.
Using someone in the shop as translator, we were able to explain what type of knives we were looking for. In the process, we found out he does custom knives. We showed him a picture of what we were interested in (see below) and he was quite confident that he could make the knife.
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He starts sketching on a piece of paper to show us what he’s thinking. His level of excitement increases as he continues to create not only a custom knife, but one unlike anything he has created before.
Not only were we able to observe his thoughts being put to paper, he began to cut the shape out of a raw piece of steel and roughing it in while we’re watching.
Fabio decides to provide an ornate pattern on the spine of the knife thus, further customizing our request.
We decided on a piece of horn that he had in stock for the grip section.
Once the basic knife was made we settled down to solidify our entire order. A deposit was made and contract information was given to us so that we would be able communicate with regard to final payment and shipment. Back in the the US, we used an Italian-English translator for our email communications.
Before we sent the last payment, Fabio sent us a picture of the knives.
The knives are shipped. We receive shipping info and two weeks later the knives arrive.