Maniago is a small town in northeastern Italy, in the region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, between the Adriatic Sea and the Dolomites.
Though founded in Roman times, the town’s traditional steel blade production began thanks to the Republic of Venice, which in 1400 authorized blacksmiths to use the waterways when working iron with their trip hummers.
And so it was that, in the following centuries, each family specialized in and diversified their production of blades, tools and metal in general, until Maniago became the knife capital of the world.