LA SCUOLA DEL CAFFÈ.
A NEW BIG PROJECT BY DITTA ARTIGIANALE AND VICTORIA ARDUINO TO SPREAD COFFEE EXCELLENCE CULTURE IN ITALY
Victoria Arduino is the espresso coffee machine partner chosen by Ditta Artigianale for the ambitious Coffee School project that was presented Tuesday in Florence. The Coffee School, idea of Francesco Sanapo and Patrick Hoffer, founders of Ditta Artigianale, is an important project dedicated to diffuse coffee excellence culture globally and offer professional training while being a simple meeting place for coffee lovers.
The ex-monastery of Sant’Ambrogio in the heart of Florence is a medieval construction situated in Via Carducci 2, which has become the center and coffee shop of the School. This project started with the need to become a reference point in the coffee society where international baristas, roasters, tasters, and coffee lovers can come together and share ideas and experience. It is a place where the core values that are sustainability, innovation, and knowledge, have a solid growth incorporating the know-how and expertise of coffee experts in a continuously evolving technological world. It is a unique, dynamic, and innovative concept, able to explain and reveal the world of coffee excellence in a highly organized manner with different level courses.
“The famous scholars of the Italian Renaissance, for example, Leonardo, could combine science with individual ability. The story repeats itself today amidst the coffee society; a solid base of technical know-how and personal expertise are the key to expand coffee culture. This – continues Ceccarani – is the great strength and uniqueness of the team-up between Ditta Artigianale and Simonelli Group. The roasters’ profound knowledge and experience about coffee, combined with our scientific and technical expertise, creates the perfect mix for complete educational and enriching courses.”
Florence is the ideal spot to disclose this ambitious project of the Italian Renaissance of specialty coffee in Italy. The participation of Simonelli Group in the Coffee School is also a recognition of the city itself. “It is a pleasure to return to this beautiful town and offer, after almost 100 years, a brand new project – declares Marco Feliziani, Vice President and Commercial Director of Simonelli Group. “In the 1930s, a unique Victoria Arduino (brand of Simonelli Group) coffee machine was installed in the old Fiorentina stadium: a mural machine with 24 dispensing groups, architecturally and technologically advanced for those times, was a superb and inspiring artwork. Today, sealing the union with Ditta Artigianale, we give tribute to Florence and contribute to the growth of Italian coffee culture.”
THE SCUOLA DEL CAFFÈ IN A MEDIEVAL MONASTERY
The Coffee School is the first of its kind in Europe to be inside an actual cafeteria open to the public. Its headquarters is a very enchanting place: the ex-monastery of Sant’Ambrogio, a medieval architecture situated in Via Carducci 2, right in the heart of Florence. The ex-cafeteria of the convent that faces the monastery is the office of the Coffee School. In the area facing Via Carducci, there is positioned the coffee shop signed Ditta Artigianale. This project started with the need to become a reference point in the coffee society where international baristas, roasters, tasters, and coffee lovers can come together and share ideas and experience. It is a place where the core values that are sustainability, innovation, and knowledge, have a solid growth incorporating the know-how and expertise of coffee experts in a continuously evolving technological world. It is a unique, dynamic, and innovative concept, able to explain and reveal the world of coffee excellence in a highly organized manner with different level courses. From June 2020 the course calendar will be available, while the academics will start January 2021.
The story of the monastery: from a prostitute community to a book repair laboratory
The ex-monastery construction, called “complesso Della Pia Casa di Rifugio di Sant’Ambrogio,” has age-old origins because of its connections to the complex building of Sant’Ambrogio, built between the V of VI century b.c. At the end of the XVIII century, the monastery, which was poverty-stricken considering the Leopold reforms of those times, became a secular educational institution for young women. The boarding school then closed in regard to the French regulations of 1808, and the whole convent transformed into public utility houses. Nevertheless, in 1815 the property rights were given to the Dominican nuns “Della Pietà” of Via Giusti. The year after, the ecclesiastical administration gave up the institution to a worldly prostitute community “in the way of redemption.” In 1835 the Pia Casa was transformed into an ethical institute and continued taking care of the young women, prospering for a long time up until the first World War, where the buildings were of Military use. After some time, the structure was sold to the Kindergarten Society and then later demolished in the occasion of an urban renovation under the new inner-city plan drafted by Luigi Del Sarto but was soon damaged by the great flood of 1966. In 1976 the Opera Pia went under Municipal authority, and in 1979 the spaces were rented to the National Library. In 1991 a significant part of the ex-monastery building was bought by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage to create the Laboratory of book restoration. Finally, in 2010, the complex was passed over to the Human Services of Florence Montedomini. [Source: Francesca Carrara, Ludovica Sebregondi, Pia Casa Rifugio di Sant’Ambrogio]
