Giulio Giannini e Figlio

Giulio Giannini e Figlio has occupied the same corner of the Oltrarno, steps from the Pitti Palace on Via dei Velluti, since the workshop was founded in 1856. It is now run by the sixth generation of the Giannini family, who trained in the same hand techniques -- marbling paper by hand and binding leather covers -- that the founder practiced when the neighborhood was still Florence's working artisan quarter.

The bottega produces marbled and hand-decorated papers, leather-bound journals and books, photo albums, greeting cards and personalized stationery, and also runs workshops teaching the traditional bookbinding and marbling techniques the shop still uses in production. The Oltrarno has long been Florence's district of craft workshops -- framers, goldsmiths, restorers -- and Giannini's survival across six generations in the same trade, on the same street, is itself part of what the shop is known for.

The workshop's work has drawn coverage from The Times, House & Garden, AD Magazine, Conde Nast Traveller and Corriere della Sera, press attention that has followed the family's reputation as one of the city's longest-running artisan bookbinders rather than any single product launch.