A silversmith's hands drive a punch with a hammer across a hammered metal dish, the punches lined up on the bench alongside.

Territories

Livorno

The sea, coral, the shipyards. A port city and an archipelago, an identity that has gone to sea for four hundred years.

The place

The territory

Livorno is the most cosmopolitan province in Tuscany. It is so by birth: the city was designed by the Medici in the sixteenth century as a free port, and the Leggi Livornine (1591 and 1593) were among the first charters of religious tolerance in Europe, calling to Livorno Sephardic Jewish, Greek, Armenian, Dutch, French and English merchants. A city made on purpose to be mixed, and one that has never since stopped being so.

The territory of the province is a long, narrow Tyrrhenian strip that runs down to the promontory of Piombino. But above all it is the province of the archipelago. Elba, Capraia, Gorgona, Pianosa, Montecristo — five islands that are part of one of the most important marine parks in the Mediterranean. The province of Livorno is the only one in Tuscany with a wholly maritime identity: port, coast, archipelago.

The Colline Livornesi separate the coast from the inland. A band of pine woods, olive groves and Mediterranean scrub, where the wines of the Tuscan coast are made — Bolgheri DOC above all, one of the most important denominations in Italian wine. Castagneto Carducci, Bibbona and Sassetta have become reference names in top-end oenology.

Piombino, in the south of the province, is the opposite case to Castiglioncello: a historic industrial zone, a national steelmaking centre until the 2000s, today an area in slow conversion. The story of Piombino is the story of Italian heavy industry, but also of the ferries to Elba and of a rocky coast of rare beauty.

Elba has an identity of its own: agricultural, mining, seafaring. The iron mines of Elba were worked from Etruscan times until 1981. Today the island lives on tourism, specialised agriculture (Aleatico Passito dell'Elba DOCG above all), fishing and small-scale boatbuilding.

The know-how

The crafts of the territory

The crafts of the province of Livorno tell of a maritime identity that has taken a thousand forms.

Shipbuilding. The yards of Livorno have built naval, merchant and pleasure vessels for four centuries. Today shipbuilding in Livorno specialises in mega yachts, in refits and in the restoration of historic craft. Caulkers, ship's carpenters, model makers, marine upholsterers, glassmakers for portholes: a supply chain that holds tradition and the highest technology together.

Coral working. Livorno is one of the historic Italian capitals of coral working. Once fished in Tyrrhenian waters and today imported from other seas, coral is cut, worked and set into jewellery according to techniques that go back to the eighteenth century. The coral workshops of Livorno still supply jewellers all over the world.

Traditional fishing and fish processing. The fishing port of Livorno and the smaller ports of the province (Piombino, Marciana Marina) keep a significant fleet at work. The processing chain — smoking, salting, preserving fish — has long-established firms between Livorno and Elba.

The distilling of Ponce and historic liqueurs. Livorno has a tradition of liqueur making born in the eighteenth century out of contact with English and Dutch sailors. Ponce alla livornese (coffee with rum and sugar, served hot) is an emblem of the city. Historic distilleries still produce liqueurs to nineteenth-century recipes.

The mines and the iron of Elba. The mines of Elba are closed, but some artisan workshops continue to work the island's iron into small objects, jewellery and commemorative pieces. A mining memory that refuses to go out.

The oenology of Bolgheri. The wine estates of the Livorno coast are among the most sophisticated in the world. Growers, oenologists and cellar masters work here to international standards: the Bolgheri DOC has turned a farming territory into a wine capital.

Artistic ceramics and mosaics. In Livorno and Piombino there are workshops of artistic ceramics and contemporary mosaic, heirs to a tradition rooted in the art of medieval Tyrrhenian maiolica.

The producers in the network

Each one practises a craft of their own.

Clandestino ClandestinoCraft beer · Via Cimarosa Al Bottegone Al BottegoneFood shop · Via Demi Azienda Agricola La Fattoria Azienda Agricola La FattoriaExtra virgin olive oil · Poggio Paolone, Suvereto GlowBloomsFlowers and decorations · Collesalvetti

The table

Food and wine production

The cooking of Livorno is one of the most recognisable in Italy, and the credit goes to the sea. Four centuries as a free port have deposited here Arab, Jewish, Levantine and Anglo-Saxon flavours — all reworked in a Tyrrhenian key.

Cacciucco. The fish soup of Livorno brings together several kinds of fish, tomato, chilli, toasted bread rubbed with garlic. It is made with scorpion fish, mantis shrimp, octopus, cuttlefish, conger, smooth-hound or red mullet, according to the catch. A sailors' dish that has become a gastronomic emblem.

Cinque e cinque. The Livorno sandwich, made with torta di ceci (a very thin chickpea flatbread, fried on a plate) and white bread, with a pinch of pepper. Market-stall food, an inheritance of work on the docks.

Triglie alla livornese. Rock red mullet dusted in flour, fried, then finished in a fresh tomato sauce. A simple preparation that has become canonical.

Baccalà alla livornese. Salt cod blanched, floured, fried and cooked in tomato.

Bordatino. Maize flour polenta, beans, cavolo nero, lardo. The land cooking of Livorno, the counterweight to cacciucco.

The fish of Elba and the archipelago. Smoked mackerel, tuna, amberjack, humble fish given their due. Island cooking has its precise specialities: gurguglione (the vegetable stew of Elba), sburrita di baccalà, boiled octopus.

The wine of Bolgheri. Sassicaia, Ornellaia, Masseto: names that have become world benchmarks. Bolgheri Superiore DOC, Bolgheri Sassicaia DOC. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Sangiovese in a Bordeaux-Tuscan blend.

Aleatico Passito dell'Elba DOCG. A sweet passito wine, made from dried aleatico grapes. One of the least known DOCG wines in Tuscany and one of the most distinctive.

Sweet things. Schiacciata alla livornese (an Easter cake).

The markets

Mercato delle Vettovaglie — Livorno

The covered market of Livorno is in Via Buontalenti, opened in 1894. On the ground floor there are the central hall and two smaller halls, one for fish and one for vegetables; below, the storerooms, which are reached by boat from the Fossi Medicei.

Along the same street, from Monday to Saturday morning, the street stalls are its open-air continuation.

Mercato di Livorno — Via dei Pensieri and Via Allende

On Friday mornings, between Via dei Pensieri and Via Allende, in the area of the stadium. It is the big city market, the best known in Livorno. Sometimes special editions are also held on Sundays.

Mercato di Piombino — Piazzale Saragat

On Wednesdays in Piazzale Saragat, from 8am to 1pm. It is the big city market of Piombino, a point of reference for the whole Val di Cornia.

Mercato di Portoferraio — Viale Tesei and Via Buozzi

On Friday mornings, between Viale Tesei and Via Buozzi. One of the largest markets on Elba: clothing, food, household goods.

All the markets of Livorno are on Tuscany Market Hub

Above there are the ones the territory recognises first. There you will find them all: day by day, square by square, with the stalls that work them and the shopping collection point where the market is actually held.