The Leather School at Santa Croce - Firenze, Italy

A Leather craftsman working on a strap for a bag - Firenze, Italy 

The Leather school at the church of Santa Croce (Scuola del Cuoio) in Firenze was started off by franciscan monks and the Gori and Casini families with the aim of giving orphans of World War II an opportunity to learn a trade from which to earn a living. The leather school has now expanded and is now a well known Florentine trading house and leather shop.

More info and images after the jump.

Engraving tools used by Leather craftsmen - Firenze, Italy

Historically, a number of industries which require large quantities of water have been based in the Santa Croce neighbourhood due to its proximity to the banks of the river Arno. These industries included tanneries, dyers and soap makers.

The growing demand for hand crafter leather goods saw the school opening it's doors to clients in 1950. The U.S. Airforce and the American embassies in Europe were amongst the schools first customers. The popularity of the schools products led to President Dwight Eisenhower using a desk which was hand crafted at Scuola del Cuoio in the oval office.

A Leather craftsman engraves a handbag - Firenze, Italy

We visited the Leather shop and factory after walking around the church of Santa Croce (pics in a future post). I spent some time wondering around the factory and having a look at how the craftsmen work (and take some photographs while I was at it). My wife looked through the factory and quite unsurprisingly,  found a bag she wanted to get. The image above is of a craftsmen engraving her initials on it.

A Leather craftsman's tools - Firenze, Italy

The counters where the craftsmen worked were very well lit but the rest of the factory was about two or three stops darker. From a photographic point of view, this was exactly what I was after. I was able to take a number of photographs where the main subject (both craftsmen and tools) was very well lit and the background was slightly darker. This ensured that there were no distractions in the frame while the underexposed background gave the image a context (the first image on this post in particular). I also didn't have my flash and shoot through umbrella with me at the time and, to be honest, I doubt I would have been able to setup any lights for photographs.

All images on this post were captured with the Canon 7D and the 24-105mm lens.

Views of Firenze

Panoramic view of Firenze - Firenze, Italy (Click to view a larger version)

On our first evening in Firenze we decided to wonder up to Piazzale Michelangiolo, which was a comfortable 3 km walk from our hotel in Oltrano. When we got up to the piazza, at around 4.30 in the afternoon, it was packed with tourists and I had a to wait a while before I could get up to the wall and set up my tripod. I had a bit of time until the light changed, so I wasn't too fussed.

The Panorama above was a 23 image stitch. The Ponte Vecchio can be seen on the left hand corner of the image while the Duomo (Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore) is on the right. The tall bell tower in the centre of the image is Palazzo Vecchio.

Read on for more images and info.

The Duomo (Santa Maria del Fiore) - Firenze, Italy

The Duomo, which was built in 1296, is right in the middle of Florence and an image of it lit up at twilight and taken from Piazzale Micelangiolo was on my shot list. I ended up spending about 4.5 hours waiting for the light to change and as a result I've got a number of images of the Duomo in varying light conditions! This is one of my favourites as the Duomo really stands out while a bit of detail is visible in the background. The fact that the buildings around the Duomo are comparatively dark also helps isolate it. I will cover the Duomo and a bit of its history in a later post.

The Ponte Vecchio - Firenze, Italy

The Ponte Vecchio is one of the most famous landmarks in Firenze. It is a medieval bridge that spans the Arno at its narrowest point. The bridge is first mentioned in documents dated to 996. It is famous for having shops along both sides of it. These shops were initially occupied by butchers but they are now jewellery stores. The bridge that appears further downstream from the Ponte Vecchio is the Ponte Santa Trinita. I'll share more images of the Ponte Vecchio in a future post.

The Duomo & Santa Croce - Firenze, Italy

The image above is of Santa Croce and the Duomo. The Arno can also be seen in the foreground. The Basilica of Santa Croce is the main Franciscan church in Florence. It is also the burial place for a number of famous Italians including Michelangelo, Galileo and Machiavelli. The church is home to a number of frescoes painted by Giotto and art works painted by Canova, Donatello and Vasari. The Franciscan friars also founded a leather school on the premises. The school / factory is still in operation and a store is open to visitors. More images of the leather factory and Santa Croce will be uploaded in future posts.

All these images were taken with a Canon 7D and a 24-105mm lens from Piazzale Michelangiolo.