Say "Italian shoes" to most people and one word comes back automatically: Florence. It is a fair association, Florence has spent decades cultivating its reputation as the home of Italian leather goods. But ask anyone who has actually spent time inside the workshops that supply the world's finest footwear, and a different name surfaces just as quickly: Marche. This unassuming region on Italy's Adriatic coast has, for well over a century, quietly produced some of the finest handmade shoes on earth, without ever needing to shout about it.
A Region Built Around the Last
Marche's relationship with shoemaking is not a marketing invention; it is geography and history working together. The region's hill towns, Fermo, Civitanova Marche, Montegranaro, and the wider Fermano-Maceratese district, have been centers of small-scale leather and footwear production since the late 19th century, when local artisans began forming the workshops and family ateliers that would eventually make the region the single largest shoe-manufacturing area in Italy by volume. Even today, a striking share of the country's footwear exports originate from Marche, produced not by a handful of famous houses but by a dense network of specialized workshops, each mastering a narrow piece of the process: cutting, lasting, stitching, finishing.
This is the structural reason Marche produces such extraordinary craftsmanship without the same name recognition as Florence. Much of its work has historically been done for other labels, other cities, other countries, the region became Italy's manufacturing engine while other regions became its storefront. The skill concentrated in Marche's workshops, generation after generation, rivals anything produced anywhere else in the country. It has simply operated with less fanfare.
The Tanning Tradition Behind the Leather
Fine shoemaking is inseparable from fine tanning, and this is another area where Marche and the neighboring Tuscan tanning districts have long been intertwined. The top grain leathers used across Italy's best footwear pass through tanneries employing methods refined over generations, vegetable and chrome tanning processes that develop the suppleness, depth of color, and structural integrity that separate genuine Italian leather from mass-produced alternatives. Artisans in Marche have built their reputations on knowing precisely how to work with this leather: how much it will stretch across a last, how it will crease over years of wear, how it should be skived at the edges so a seam lies invisibly flat.
It is this depth of hands-on material knowledge, passed from master to apprentice inside small workshops rather than taught in a classroom, that defines the region's craft. A shoemaker in Marche does not simply follow a pattern; they read the leather in front of them and adjust accordingly, hide by hide, pair by pair.
Florence built the brand. Marche built the shoe.
Equally Prestigious, Less Known
There is a reason discerning collectors of fine footwear increasingly seek out Marche-made shoes specifically. Without the premium attached to more marketed regional names, Marche offers extraordinary construction quality at a more honest price, craftsmanship judged on the shoe itself rather than the postcode stamped inside it. The region's ateliers have quietly supplied components and finished pairs to some of the most recognized names in luxury footwear for decades, a fact rarely advertised but well understood within the industry.
Nunzio Orsini's Roots in Marche
It is this heritage that drew Nunzio Orsini to root its production in Marche rather than the more expected Florentine workshops. Every pair we make, The Francesco, The Daniele, The Giuseppe, and The Nunzio, is built from top grain Italian leather within this tradition, using what we call modern handmade construction: artisans trained in techniques generations old, supported by precision machine assistance where it improves consistency without diluting the craft itself.
We believe the region deserves recognition proportional to its skill, not its marketing budget. When you hold a pair of Nunzio Orsini shoes, you are holding the output of a shoemaking culture that has been quietly perfecting its craft since long before "Made in Italy" became a marketing phrase, one stitch, one last, one hide at a time.
What This Means for You
For the buyer, Marche's understated prestige translates directly into value: construction quality on par with far more expensive, more heavily marketed regional names, at a price built around the craftsmanship rather than the reputation. At $495, a pair of Nunzio Orsini Oxfords reflects exactly that philosophy, genuine Italian handwork, honestly priced, rooted in the region that has arguably earned it more than any other.