View of Cathedral of Florence
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Direct to consumer (DTC) wine sales in the U.S.– where manufacturers deliver bottles directly to homes– bypass suppliers and retail stores. This requires more sales effort by manufacturers, however can be rewarded by tax advantages.
Wealthy families in the Italian city of Florence used comparable DTC techniques throughout the Renaissance period to lower their taxes. A brief, well-illustrated and interesting book entitled Red wine Windows in Florence and Tuscany– by Florentine art historians Diletta Corsini and Lucrezia Giordano [BDV, 2021]– exposes appealing business methods.
During much of the period that consists of parts of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, including the 16th and 17th centuries, only merchants could sell red wine in Florence, and these merchants had to be members of the effective Arte dei Vinattieri guild. This guild also managed tavern opening hours and sales prices and designated where white wine could be offered. Nevertheless, there was a crucial exception to the local law: landowners could buy red wine produced by the renters who inhabited their farm land, then offer this directly from their private homes– according to a decree issued by Cosimo I de’Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, in 1559. When this red wine predestined for households entered through the city gates, it was exempt from being taxed. Powerful and rich households such as Machiavelli, in addition to others still strong in the wine trade today– Frescobaldi, Antinori and Ricasoli– complied with this law and offered red wine from their typically palatial houses to city residents.
Twilight brightens Ponte Vecchio in Florence, Italy
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This juice was sold in flasks of a certain allowable measurements. Sales transactions happened through small stone websites in residential walls. These small windows, or buchette [singular is buchetta], only allowed flasks of that required size, and no larger, to go through. These small websites also decreased the danger of intruders entering, and minimized contamination threats when a wave of bubonic plague ripped across Florence between the years 1629 and 1633, eliminating 12% of the city’s population. Vendors might pour red wine into flasks placed on the window ledge, then scoop up payment coins utilizing a copper rod prior to dropping these coins into vinegar for decontamination. In the very same method that the Covid-19 pandemic modified making use of retail store entrance and exit points to decrease human contact, the development of buchette minimized contact in between sellers and buyers during upsurges.
The book by Corsini and Giordano lists 180 wine windows, or buchette, still existing in this critical Renaissance city. During the recent Covid-19 pandemic, some of these exact same websites were used once again for the sale of coffee, red wine, snacks and meals.
White wine window, or buchetta, in Florence, Italy
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The book consists of historical information about these business deal points and supplies street addresses where you can discover these architectural anomalies. Because street numbering can vary in Florence, you may want to wander city streets and keep an eye out for such openings without clutching a guide book. Some buchette are well preserved with historical plaques; others look desolate and forgotten.
The book lists seven bucchete along the Borgo degli Albizi street in the town hall. Within within minutes of walking during a current weekend go to I discovered one at street address 26. The accompanying plaque checks out ‘Buchetta del Vino Red wine Window,’ and includes the website for the Buchette del Vino cultural association. This consists of general information about these websites for visitors. Corsini and Giordano’s book likewise consists of a map of locations of such windows in other Tuscan cities– such as Siena, Lucca, Pistoia and Prato.
These buchette of historic interest are also windows to the past– tips that tax and disease still modify our surrounding commerce and architecture.