Description
The Museo Ferragamo tells the story of one of Italy's most famous fashion houses in the place where it was born: the cellars of Palazzo Spini Feroni, the medieval palace overlooking the Santa Trinita bridge, on Via Tornabuoni. It is the museum dedicated to Salvatore Ferragamo, the “shoemaker to the stars,” and to his shoes.
It is not a museum with a permanent collection. Since 2006 it has put on one themed exhibition a year, linking fashion with art, architecture, design or society. The material comes from the family archive, with over fifteen thousand shoe models, plus drawings, photographs and documents.
Among the most curious things are the wooden lasts of famous clients' feet: from Marilyn Monroe to Audrey Hepburn, from Greta Garbo to Sophia Loren and Anna Magnani. Ferragamo sought the perfect fit, and every foot had its own last, made to measure.
If you like inventions, look at the sandals with uppers of raffia or cellophane, born in wartime, and the cork wedge, patented in 1937, when steel was scarce. They are the ideas of someone who was never satisfied.
Salvatore was the eleventh of fourteen children in a small village in Irpinia, and he made his first shoes for his sisters. In 1915 he left for America: in California he sat in on anatomy lectures to understand how a foot is really built.
In 1927 he came back to Italy and chose Florence. In 1933 his company went bankrupt, and he immediately started again with a new firm. Since 1938 the headquarters has been Palazzo Spini Feroni, which he bought and turned into the home of his shoes: in the 1950s divas and royal families came here.
The museum was opened in 1995 by his wife Wanda, on the second floor of the palace. In the cellars you can also see the old well of the Spini family, called the Well of Beatrice, because Dante is said to have first met Beatrice right near the bridge.
It is not a museum with a permanent collection. Since 2006 it has put on one themed exhibition a year, linking fashion with art, architecture, design or society. The material comes from the family archive, with over fifteen thousand shoe models, plus drawings, photographs and documents.
Among the most curious things are the wooden lasts of famous clients' feet: from Marilyn Monroe to Audrey Hepburn, from Greta Garbo to Sophia Loren and Anna Magnani. Ferragamo sought the perfect fit, and every foot had its own last, made to measure.
If you like inventions, look at the sandals with uppers of raffia or cellophane, born in wartime, and the cork wedge, patented in 1937, when steel was scarce. They are the ideas of someone who was never satisfied.
Salvatore was the eleventh of fourteen children in a small village in Irpinia, and he made his first shoes for his sisters. In 1915 he left for America: in California he sat in on anatomy lectures to understand how a foot is really built.
In 1927 he came back to Italy and chose Florence. In 1933 his company went bankrupt, and he immediately started again with a new firm. Since 1938 the headquarters has been Palazzo Spini Feroni, which he bought and turned into the home of his shoes: in the 1950s divas and royal families came here.
The museum was opened in 1995 by his wife Wanda, on the second floor of the palace. In the cellars you can also see the old well of the Spini family, called the Well of Beatrice, because Dante is said to have first met Beatrice right near the bridge.