Via Della Vigna Nuova, Florence / Online
Young Florentine leather label — handmade jackets and sneakers with a heart-transplant founding story.
Best for Leather jackets and sneakers.
Craft guide
The Leather & Bag Makers in Florence Issue
ORBISLEATHER & BAG MAKERS IN FLORENCE8 shops in the atlas.Illustration
Leather & Bag Makers in Florence
8 stores · curated ORBIS register
Benheart brings leather jackets and sneakers into this Florence selection through a locally founded clothing and footwear label. Gianni Chiarini specialises in leather bags, with the Marcella tote among the Florentine house's named designs. Legatoria Il Torchio uses leather alongside canvas and artistic papers for hand-bound journals and albums, also restoring older books.
Visit official site ↗Ponte Vecchio & Jewelry, Florence / Online
Florence leather-goods atelier founded by Maria Clara Soto, whose maternal family were Italian leatherworkers; handmade vegetable-tanned bags are sold from a boutique on Via del Moro in the Santa Maria Novella quarter and online at digerolamo.it.
Best for Neapolitan leather craft.
Digerolamo is a Florence-based leather goods house founded by Maria Clara Soto, who trained at a leatherworking school after moving to the city and named the workshop after her great-grandfather's surname, honouring three generations of family leathercraft on her maternal side. The brand makes handbags in vegetable-tanned Italian leather, designed to be worn in multiple ways and positioned as sustainable, artisan-made pieces rather than mass production. Its physical boutique is located at Via del Moro 58/R, in the Santa Maria Novella quarter of central Florence - near the train station district, not the Ponte Vecchio area. The brand's current, functioning web presence is digerolamo.it.
Florence
FP Pelletterie has made leather goods (pelletteria) in Florence since 1977, run by Flavia and Flavio from two shops on Piazza Duomo. Bags, belts, and wallets are handmade from cowhide and lambskin leather.
Best for Handmade leather bags and belts
Visit official site ↗Florence / Online
Florence leather-goods house founded in the 1990s by Gianni Chiarini, whose father supplied leather in the city's tanning district; Chiarini launched his first self-designed, signed bag line in 2000 and brands the house 'Made in Florence' before 'Made in Italy.'
Best for Florentine leather bags and the Marcella tote
Gianni Chiarini grew up around Florence's leather trade — his father worked as a leather supplier in the city's tanning district, a traditional reference point for Tuscany's hide and tanning industry. Chiarini started his own workshop in Florence in the 1990s, initially producing bags for other labels, before deciding in 2000 to design and sign his first collection under his own name. That decision marked the shift from contract manufacturer to branded house, and the label built its identity around structured, mid-priced leather bags — including the Marcella model — made in and around Florence rather than outsourced production. The company describes itself as 'Made in Florence' before 'Made in Italy,' emphasizing its roots in the specific Tuscan tanning district over the broader national label. In 2017 Chiarini sold a 70% stake in the business to the investment fund 21 Invest, controlled by Alessandro Benetton, while remaining involved with the brand. The company marked its 25th anniversary in 2025, reporting revenue above 34 million euros for 2024 and marking the milestone with a limited-edition capsule bag collection. The house remains positioned as an accessible entry point into Florentine leather craftsmanship, sold through department stores and multibrand boutiques rather than its own flagship network.
Visit official site ↗Madova
Heritage HouseFlorence / Online
Family-run since 1919 near Florence's Ponte Vecchio, Madova has produced leather gloves exclusively across three generations, from founder Amedeo Donnini to today's four siblings. Every pair is still made and fitted on site at Via Guicciardini 1R.
Best for Leather gloves in every color, made and fitted on site in Florence
Madova was founded in 1919 by Amedeo Donnini, whose small Florence workshop made leather gloves for the city's prominent families and shops. Production stopped during the economic crisis and the Second World War, and the business did not reopen until 1945, when Amedeo's children — Ennio, Sergio, Rosanna and Maria — revived it and, in 1954, opened the retail shop and registered the Madova trademark that carries the family name to this day.
The shop sits on Via Guicciardini, the street that runs directly to the Ponte Vecchio, and the family describes itself as one of the only glovemakers left in Europe that both sells and produces exclusively leather gloves rather than diversifying into other accessories. That single-material focus has defined the house across its history: cutting, lining and finishing are done in-house, and customers are still fitted by hand at the counter rather than choosing by size chart alone.
Madova is now run by a fourth generation — Mauro, Franco, Andrea and Silvia — who have kept the workshop's original scope: leather gloves in a wide range of colors and linings, exported to the United States, Europe and Japan. Over a century after Amedeo Donnini's founding, the business remains what it started as: a single-family, single-product glove shop a few steps from one of Florence's most photographed bridges.
Visit official site ↗Oltrarno, Florence / Online
Florentine leather workshop founded in 1956 by brothers Piero and Roberto Peroni, known for hand-decorated 'cuoietto artistico fiorentino' leather made without stitching; now run by the third generation.
Best for Hand-finished belts and bags.
Pelletteria Peroni is a Florence leather workshop founded in 1956 by brothers Piero and Roberto Peroni. It is known for a hand technique called 'cuoietto artistico fiorentino,' an approach with roots in Renaissance-era Florence that decorates and assembles leather goods - often with gold-leaf detailing - without stitching. Pieces are cut, decorated and assembled by hand rather than by machine. The business has since passed to a third generation, brothers Maurizio and Marco Peroni, who continue the same hand techniques while adding their own design work. Over more than 65 years of operation it has received craft recognition, including honors from Eurispes in 2007 and from OmA in 2015.
Visit official site ↗Scuola del Cuoio
Worth a DetourFlorence / Santa Croce / Online
Florence leather school and workshop inside the Franciscan monastery of Santa Croce, founded in 1950 by the Gori and Casini families with the friars to teach leatherworking to war orphans; still family-run, with visitors able to watch artisans work and buy directly from the workshop.
Best for Monastery-made leather goods and bespoke pieces.
Scuola del Cuoio was established after the Second World War through a partnership between the Franciscan friars of the Monastery of Santa Croce and the Gori and Casini families, Florentine leather artisans active since the 1930s. Marcello Gori and his brother-in-law Silvano Casini moved their workshop into the monastery's dormitory space, with the explicit mission of teaching leatherworking to war orphans as a practical trade. The school opened its doors to retail customers in May 1950. Following Gori's and Casini's deaths in 2003, the business passed to Gori's daughters - Laura, Francesca, and Barbara - who still run the school and workshop.
Visit official site ↗Florence / Online
Founded in 1969 near Florence as Il Ponte Pelletteria by five Florentine leatherworkers, renamed The Bridge in 1975, with production based in Scandicci since 1987; part of the Piquadro group since 2016.
Best for Patina-rich briefcases.
The Bridge began in 1969 as Il Ponte Pelletteria, founded in the Florence area by five Florentine leatherworkers: Fiorenza Benvenuti, Fernando Biagioni, Roberto Boncinelli, Andrea Ferri and Arturo Senserini. The company took the English name The Bridge in 1975, a direct translation of 'il ponte,' and in 1987 moved its production headquarters to Scandicci, the leather-district town outside Florence long associated with Tuscan tanning and leatherworking. Since 2016, The Bridge has been part of the Piquadro group, though it continues to operate as its own brand. The house's identifying material is vegetable-tanned Tuscan leather, hand-polished rather than machine-finished, which ages by darkening and developing a patina with wear and light exposure over years of use, as opposed to chrome-tanned leather, which does not develop the same effect. That five-founder, cooperative origin, a group of leatherworkers rather than a single designer-founder, combined with continuous production in the Florence/Scandicci district since 1969, is what distinguishes The Bridge's account of itself within Tuscany's leather-goods trade.
Visit official site ↗