Antica Farmacia Massagli

This guide to the Antica Farmacia Massagli in Lucca follows Pasquale Massagli, a young pharmacist who set up shop in Piazza San Michele in 1855, right as malaria fever was sweeping the city each summer. Instead of waiting on doctors, he brewed his own tonic from cinchona bark and a handful of ingredients he refused to write down, insisting the batches be timed to the phases of the moon. You'll hear how he won over a skeptical city with free tastings across the wooden counter, and how the family kept the formula after his death in 1890, passed through directors who never dared change it. Stand at the counter where an obsession first became a habit.