Picchiotti’s saga is deeply rooted in the Tuscan history. It starts in Florence, where the Grand Duke Cosimo de’ Medici decided to boost the traffic of people and goods along the river Arno, the waterway connecting Florence to the coastal towns of Pisa and Leghorn. With this aim, the Grand Duke started the construction of a new system of riverside Canals. The Canale dei Navicelli was inaugurated in the year 1603. Navicelli was also the name given to the various kind of watercrafts that were floating along the canal.
The first historical documents mentioning the Picchiotti name are recorded in 1575, indicating the family as authorised boat builders in the village of Limite sull’Arno.
Since then, generations of men and genius minds were able to watch at the sea with new eyes and their vision led to the birth of the modern nautical industry. For more than four centuries Picchiotti shipyards marked the history of the Italian Navy, the commercial shipping and later of the yacht building.
The ships and boats made by Picchiotti throughout the centuries tell the story of the shipbuilding technical developments, including the passage from wood to iron, then steel and later aluminium hulls.
The Italian Register of Shipping records 599 Picchiotti boats delivered from 1848 to 1978.
In 1902, Picchiotti realised the very first leisure yacht ever built in Italy, the motor yacht L’Espresso. In 1905 it launched the gentleman yacht Espero, while building smaller projects such as the Liu’, the famous little lake boat of the Maestro Giacomo Puccini. After World War II, Picchiotti contributed to the rebirth of the leisure yachting industry with the building of famous gentleman yachts such as the MY Kon Tiki in 1947, or MY Anita in 1955 or the Solitaire, 42,4 m motor yacht in 1977, to name but a few.
In 1982 the flagship of the Picchiotti fleet – and one of the largest yacht in the world at that time – the 103 m motor yacht Al Said was built in Marina di Carrara, in the sheds of the Nuovi Cantieri Apuania, today at the very core of The Italian Sea Group.
In most recent times, between 2010 and 2014, Picchiotti delivered 3 modern motor yachts of the Vitruvius Explorer Series: the 50m Falco Moscata, formerly Exuma; Galileo G, 55 m and the 73 m Nautilus, formerly named Grace E.
Today this tradition takes new life and Picchiotti’s new course restarts from Marina di Carrara, from the piers of The Italian Sea Group, the company founded and headed by Giovanni Costantino, that in a few years has redrawn the map of the world yachting industry.
This centenary tradition finds here its future thanks to The Italian Sea Group that means to interpret Picchiotti’s stylistic and historical values.
