Loggia del Grano & the Saltless Bread
Why is it significant?
On the corner of Via dei Neri, find the stone building with a marble bust of a young duke gazing down over a small fountain, whose water pours from the mouth of a grotesque face. This is the Loggia del Grano, the grain market, built in 1619 by Giulio Parigi for Grand Duke Cosimo the Second.
Key Facts
| Place | Loggia del Grano & the Saltless Bread |
|---|---|
| Address | Via dei Neri, 50122 Firenze FI, Italy |
| Geo Coordinates | 43.76850, 11.25690 |
| Part of Walk | Tripe, Truffles and Wine Windows: A Food Lover's Walk Through Florence |
| Generated | Generated |
On the corner of Via dei Neri, find the stone building with a marble bust of a young duke gazing down over a small fountain, whose water pours from the mouth of a grotesque face. This is the Loggia del Grano, the grain market, built in 1619 by Giulio Parigi for Grand Duke Cosimo the Second.
Under its arches grain from the countryside was measured and sold. That sounds dull until you remember that in a city of tens of thousands, a bad harvest meant hunger, and hunger meant riots. Florence had magistrates whose whole job was to stock grain and keep the price of bread from exploding. Whoever controlled the bread controlled the streets... and the Medici knew it.
Now, bread. When you eat in Florence, you may think the baker forgot something. Tuscan bread is made without salt. There are several stories. One says that in the twelfth century Pisa, the great rival, blocked the salt coming up the Arno. Another blames a heavy tax on salt. Nobody can prove either. But the habit is old enough that Dante, exiled from Florence, wrote in his Paradiso how salty another man's bread tastes. For a Florentine, even the bread of exile was too salty.
The saltless loaf makes sense at the table. It is the quiet partner of salty prosciutto, aged pecorino and the black-cabbage soups, and it goes stale in a way that is perfect for soaking. These streets know water too. In the flood of the fourth of November 1966, the Arno poured through this whole quarter, and plaques on the walls nearby still mark how high it rose, far above a person's head.
Next comes coffee and cake, and a square with a split personality. Walk past the back of Palazzo Vecchio, cross Piazza della Signoria, and follow Via dei Calzaiuoli north until a great arch opens on your left into Piazza della Repubblica.