For nearly 25 years I have been hanging around the Banchi workshop, admirably run first by Lamberto, then by his son Duccio. He has just celebrated the 60th anniversary of an unrelenting activity, started immediately after World War II, then crippled by the great Flood, and now based on the outskirts of San Frediano, the world’s coolest neighbourhood, according to Lonely Planet! Duccio learnt everything from his father, as often happens in the great artisanal traditions, and is now integrating his own ideas, his own “trials” with traditional stylistic elements.
The workshop is worth a visit and it is pretty much impossible to leave without buying something : their frames are so unique!