Tin boxes to save memories

In our maternal grandparents' house there was a very large display cabinet; one of our most cherished memories is linked to that piece of furniture. Our grandfather would open it and from there the smell of cookies and sugar was released in an instant; he used to keep them on the top shelf, safe from our greedy palates. When we had been especially good we could choose a delicious biscuit from the special tin box or a lump of sugar.

That tin box fascinated us so much; first of all it was decorated with colors and beautiful images and secondly and most of all because it represented a treasure chest and magically preserved the flavor and aroma of the biscuits kept in it.
At the small Mattei Bottega Museum in Via Porta Rossa in Florence, there is a dedicated space to this type of packaging. Mattei tin boxes made their first appearance in the gift packaging catalogue at the end of the 1980s.

In addition to these, there are other limited edition tins, some no longer in production, on display in the Bottega Museum in Florence.

In 2017 we invited the prestigious Florentine designers Simone Massoni and Ilaria Falorsi to design something new in order to make the container as special as its content. The white background of the new 300 g tin welcomes a series of blue sketch characters that walk along the entire (side) perimeter in a carousel that takes us from the facade of the historic shop to the laboratory; the profile figure of Antonio Mattei dominates the lid, he is proudly carrying his biscuit under his arm. 

We also have to thank the pair of designers and their ingenuity for the new 2020 packages:
A cylindrical tin containing 500 g of biscuits celebrates the city of Prato (the historic home of the Mattei company for over 160 years and the birthplace of the biscuits), this is the reason why the colors green and white (characteristic marble of local architecture) were chosen. On the side there is a portico where there are various figures under the arches: a rooster, guardian of the hen house and its treasures, the eggs are in fact one of the main elements of a pastry shop, as is the flour represented by the Goddess of wheat; and among them, the unmissable Antonio Mattei. Biscotti di PRATO is written in large letters on the lid and there is a stylized floral motif making it look like a pun "Prato di Biscotti" (Prato also means “field” in Italian).

The other smaller rectangular base tin contains 300 g of biscuits and is a tribute to the new headquarters of the small Bottega Museum in via Porta Rossa in Florence. The two artists wanted to recreate the museum atmosphere by "hanging" a series of portraits on the edges of the box, some real - Antonio Mattei and Ernesto Pandolfini - and others imaginary, which visually recreate a range of genres covering the time and historical span of the biscuit factory founded in 1858. 

So... after buying a tin box, and having tasted and "smelled" the contents, perhaps for you too it can become not only a container of biscuits, but also of memories.