Stabilimento Florio, Tuna fishery and museum in Favignana, Italy
The Stabilimento Florio is a former tuna processing plant and current museum in Favignana, Italy, with several connected industrial buildings made of pale stone along the coast. The facility stretches across a large site with high vaulted ceilings, long processing halls, and courtyards where old machinery, boilers, and wooden work areas are preserved.
The Florio family purchased an existing tonnara in 1874 and expanded it into a modern industrial complex that employed over 100 workers into the 1970s. The plant closed in 1977 as tuna stocks declined and industrial fishing in the Mediterranean changed.
The name comes from the influential Sicilian family who worked here for over a century, preserving tuna in olive oil. Visitors today still see the original tools and anchors used during the mattanza, a method where fishermen stand in boats arranged in a circle and pull up the nets together.
The tour leads through processing rooms, storage areas, and outdoor courtyards where information panels in Italian and English explain the different stages of tuna processing. Comfortable shoes help when walking over uneven stone floors, and a morning visit avoids the hottest hours in summer.
The old tuna cans with the Florio family logo are sought by collectors today and are considered early examples of Italian industrial design. One room still shows the heavy iron doors of the cooling chambers where fresh fish was stored until processing.
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