Must-Buy Souvenirs

Wallets, belts and bags cut and gold-tooled by hand at the leather school founded in 1950 inside the Santa Croce monastery. You can watch the artisans work before you buy.

Soaps, rose water and colognes still made to Dominican friars' recipes, sold in a frescoed 13th-century pharmacy that is worth entering even if you buy nothing.

Notebooks, boxes and sheets patterned by floating pigment on water, a Florentine bookbinding craft kept alive by a handful of family workshops.

The original Prato recipe from an 1858 bakery, sold in the blue paper bag that Tuscans recognise instantly. Keeps for weeks, so it survives the flight home.

Sangiovese from the hills between Florence and Siena. Look for the black rooster seal on the neck – it marks the historic Classico zone rather than generic Chianti.