Beccaio Ristorante

The "arte dei beccai" -butchers- was one of he business corporation in Florence before and after the reinassance, and was one of the minor "arts", not as such powerful and rich as the 7 major "arts" belong to this corporation were the meat and fish merchants, wine bar and grill owners. The corporation never obtained the prestige among the major arts, beside the fact that their work was a primary need and importance at that age. The import and sell of food items as the meat and the flesh, made them quite powerful and worthy under the eyes of locale people even for that scary sensation they provoked with theu behaviour so well-knowed as aggressive and tendence to the riot during the several street-fights and rebellions that normally took place in Florence. Dino Compagni, a tuscan poet, gave this description of its members. "The baccai always were, among the arts, the most scandaluos".
The beccai were butchers who were trading about all kinds of livestock, buying them in the countryside around Florence then far from there. The most popular meat that you could find on a florentine table was roasted or steamed, as the famous "florentine t-bone steak", that still today is a speciality of this town. For sure more than now the use of their sheep was remarkable (the reason what for many beccai received their "label"as a nickname -becco was the male of the sheep-), while the use of the beef was reserved to the rich and high class people. The livestock market took place normally around the church of Ognissanti, while the slaughtering and the selling of the meat was taken at the new market and today's Repubblica Square, where there was the old market, disappeared after the demolition around the 19th century during the italian state capital city time period.