Officina Profumo - Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella

This guide to the Officina Profumo - Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella in Florence opens in 1533, as a teenage Catherine de Medici prepares to leave the city to marry the future king of France and asks the Dominican friars here for a scent that captures Florence itself. It follows the young perfumer Renato Bianco, the unusual base he chose against every convention of the age, and the path that carried him and Florentine perfume-making to the French court. You'll also hear how these friars were already mixing remedies here since 1221, long before that royal request.