1606: the beginning of a long love-story

In the early 17th century (1606), a Florentine merchant, Francesco Carletti, returned from the New World and described cocoa paste as "small cakes which the Indians call chocolate". This preparation aroused the great interest of the Italians, who immediately perfected the art of making fine chocolates.
Italians have always taken their chocolate seriously. From 1606 onwards, the art of chocolate-making developed in Venice and Florence. In 1678, the king licensed the Turinese baker, Antonio Ari, "to sell a chocolate drink" that was later to become the most popular drink in town, called "bicherin" - "little glass" - because it was served in a small glass with a metal base and handle.
From then on, the art of making fine chocolates thrived in Turin and throughout Piedmont.

Turin - Italy's chocolate capital

By the end of the 17th century Turin had already become Italy's chocolate capital: 750 pounds of chocolate were produced each day by local chocolate-makers and even exported to Austria, Switzerland, France and Germany. Piedmont, the region which is still Italy's main chocolate-producing region to this day, is also the cradle of the famous "pasta gianduia" - the delicious paste made of chocolate and Piedmontese hazel or filbert nuts. For what was to become Italy's chocolate delicacy was created one day during the Carnival period in 1867, taking the name of Turin's traditional stock-character, Gianduia. The chocolate had to be blended with filbert or hazelnut because the Kingdom found it difficult to import sufficient quantities of cacao around 1860.
Turin also lays claim to the creation of miniature chocolates: they were as small as acorns, hand-made cocoa paste, and called “givu”.

Towards modern chocolate-making

In 1802, a Genoese engineer named Bozelli designed a hydraulic machine to refine cocoa paste and blend it with sugar and vanilla, with a daily production capacity of 700 pounds of chocolate. This was the first step towards modern chocolate-making: in 1815, an enterprising young man named François Louis Cailler travelled to Turin, learned the tricks of the chocolate trade, and returned to Switzerland to plant the seed of what was to become the country's greatest claim to fame.
While, in 1884, Russia's Tsar Alexander III was commissioning the first surprise egg of gold and precious stones from the jeweller Fabergé, Italy's producers were introducing chocolate Easter eggs containing a novelty gift inside.

Between the two world wars

During the period between the two world wars, miniature chocolates became popular with the Italians, with an imaginative assortment of different flavours and packaging. Some of the most popular favourites were the "boeri" (named after the South African Boers, who declared war on the British), the "neapolitans" and the "gianduiotto", named after the Turinese stock-character, Gianduja.

Chocolate today

Italy's chocolate industry imported over 113,000 tons of cocoa in 2000, and manufactured 285,150 tons of chocolates with tantalisingly delicious flavours.
Every manufacturer jealously protects their recipes, whose distinguished qualities are the result of a careful blending of cacaos of different qualities, each with their own taste, aroma and flavour. But blended above all with an all-Italian history.