Where to find A Casa di Dante: the farmers' markets

This website came later. Before it — and still now — there is a stall, some crates, and somebody behind them answering questions. That is the farmers' market, and it is the place where a product like aglione explains itself best.

Where we meet

Our base is the Campagna Amica covered market in Arezzo, at via Mincio 3. That is where you will find the aglione in season, along with the fruit and the preserves.

In Florence there is the covered market of Porta San Frediano, opened recently and today the largest Campagna Amica market in Tuscany: more than a thousand square metres and some fifty producers bringing into the city every week what they have harvested.

Then there are the appointments that come round each year: the Mercato nel Campo in Siena, the Christmas markets in Arezzo in piazza Sant'Agostino with the Campagna Amica street food, the Villaggio Coldiretti when it passes through Rome.

Dates change from year to year: before setting out to meet us, a phone call or a message settles it.

Why a farmers' market is not a shop

The difference is not the price, and it is not even the freshness, although both count. The difference is that behind the stall is the person who grew the thing.

It means you can ask when it was picked and get a date rather than a shrug. It means that if something went badly that year, they will tell you. And it means whoever is selling has a direct interest in your coming back: it is not one step in a supply chain, it is the whole chain.

According to Coldiretti figures, in 2025 two Italians in three made at least one purchase at a farmers' market. It is no longer a niche.

Three questions to ask at the stall

"When did you pick it?" The answer tells you everything about the rest.

"How would you cook it?" People who grow something eat it, and usually have a way of cooking it that is in no recipe book.

"What is good right now?" This is the question that saves money: whatever is abundant costs less and is at its best.

And if the market is far away

That is what the website is for. Aglione della Valdichiana and the preserves leave the Valdichiana and arrive at your door, in Italy and abroad.

It is not the same as a market stall — there are no questions and nobody to answer them. But it is the same product, and there is a phone number if you want your questions answered anyway.