Oltrarno craftspeople at work

One suggestion: never on Sunday. I wandered around the Oltrarno on a Sunday several months ago. It was the first day after I arrived in Italy, and I thought it would be a great way to be outside, recover from jet lag and peek into artisans' workshops. Churches were open, in the afternoon, but there was nary a workshop open anywhere that I could find. Just sayin....

Check on this to be sure, but I believe that every other Sunday at Piazza di Santo Spirito is a great flea market. We visited it on a cool, clear March Sunday and there was everything under the sun. I was fascinated at a large box of silver and gold plated machinery pieces, the kind your grandfather would have in his workbench. If I had an artisanal or artistic bent, I would've wanted to take a bunch of it home with me.

I don't know why one should expect a small artisan shop to be open on Sunday. How many small auto mechanic shops, for example, are open in America on Sunday? Just sayin..

The Mercato delle Arti e Mestieri d'Oltrarno is open the second Sunday of every month on Piazza Santo Spirito (I think with the exception of August and maybe July). On the same Piazza, on the 3rd Sunday of the month, there is also the Fierucola (little fair) of organic food products (probably not in July and August also).

You can find artisan shop on many little streets in the Oltrarno. It's nowhere what it used to be when I was growing up there, since many closed down victims of Chinese cheap competition and also the recent financial crisis, but there are still some.

Thank you for your info on the special markets on Piazza di Santo Spirito, Roberto. As I wandered around that Sunday afternoon, I realized that it was my jet-lag-addled brain leading me, whereas I knew, somewhere, sensibly, that workshops would be closed on Sunday. I did find some workshops and lovely little shops in the neighborhood open on a weekday morning, a couple of years ago (RS names several in his Florence book). I also enjoyed some time spent in the front shop of an artists' school/collective in the Oltrarno some halfway between Santo Spirito and the Pitti Palace, and talking with the artists in that school/collective. However, I could not find that school/collective, open or closed, this year, and wonder if you, Roberto, or anyone else knows of it...

Not sure what that collective/school would be. There is the Machiavelli school on Piazza Santo Spirito, which teaches Italian and some crafts courses to foreigners. There is also the "Le Arti Orafe", a jewelry/goldsmith school on via de' seragli but I don't know of others.

Thanks for your help, everyone. I really appreciate it.

(Sarcasm on) Hi all please feel free to wander by my house this Sunday for viewing some artisanal leaf raking and house painting. For 20 euro you too can participate. ;) (sarcasm off)

Please do not interpret this as a dig. Watching local craftspeople is a lot of fun. I just need help with yard work. ;)

Yeah, the word 'artisanal' has certainly been devalued, but I was after something specific and wanted to provide the exact wording I have read in other references. I've tried to wing it at times on vacations thinking we would figure it out when we get there, it's too obvious to miss, surely we will find it, etc. I've learned that a little planning and advanced info really increases the success rate. I guess that's why many of us are on this forum.

Well, my late grandfather spent his life working as an artisan in the Oltrarno. He had his workshop at the ground floor and his home at the first floor of the same house. When I went to visit him, I remember the wonderful feeling of waking up in the morning to the tune of woodworkers' saws and the smell of fresh wood.

It was also hard work - every working day he first attended the early Mass at 6.30am at San Felice church, then he worked from 7.30am to 8pm with three short pauses. When he had some large orders, working time could extend to 10pm. And this is why most artisan workshops closed in the seventies or the eighties when they owners retired without finding followers. He would not allow people - but his closest family - to watch him work: it was hard work, not a show. There is a very funny video in Italian on youtube about a violin maker living close to Florence the decided to open up his workshop only to be pestered by old people with time to spend looking for conversation ;-)

Now that I've gotten Rick's Florence book I see that he has suggestions for an Oltrarno walk. Also the Lonely Planet Florence/Tuscany guide has good suggestions under the shopping section for Florence.