A Tuscany's icon: Fiasco

In English-speaking countries, the term "fiasco" refers to a failure, but in Italy, especially in Tuscany, the term a fiasco is only used for drinking wine!
The fiasco is a flared glass bottle with a round bottom, covered with straw. Its origins are very ancient, dating back to around the 14th century, or at least the first written and painted testimonies of its existence date back to this period.

The first literary reference appears to be the one given by Giovanni Boccaccio in some novellas of the Decameron, written between 1348 and 1353. Fiaschi (plural for fiasco) are mentioned several times, bearing witness to the misadventures of the characters in Boccaccio's stories.
That glass flasks of wine were being produced as early as the mid-14th century is also confirmed by a pictorial testimony by the painter Tomaso da Modena in the Church of San Niccolò in Treviso. In the 1352 fresco, he depicts Saint Jerome studying ancient texts. Hanging on the wall next to him is a small fiask covered with string, presumably containing fortified wine to warm the body during the winter or ink for writing.
The presence of flasks of wine in a work by this artist is not surprising, considering that in Modena, his hometown, a furnace operated by Florentine glassmakers had been active since the first half of the 14th century.
The fiasco appears in numerous paintings and still lifes from the 14th century onwards. Some famous examples include Sandro Botticelli's Feast for Nastagio degli Onesti (1483), which shows large fiaschi next to a stump in the woods; the maid carrying a fiasco in Domenico Ghirlandaio's fresco depicting the Birth of John the Baptist (1485–1490) in the Tornabuoni Chapel in the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella in Florence; and later, in the 17th century, the wine fiaschi featured in Jacopo Chimenti's still lifes.

In Florence, evidence of the production of these iconic straw-covered bottles can be found on Via della Condotta. This was the site of the Canto dei Fiascai ("canti" in ancient Florence referred to the corners formed by the intersection of two streets), where numerous artisan workshops gave fiaschi their woven straw support, necessary to make them stand upright.
In the 19th century, we know that glass fiaschi were produced primarily in the area between Pontassieve and Rufina, and “fiascaie” used to cover them with straw.

Fiaschi were never thrown away, but almost always had a second life. They were used to hold liquids other than wine and even to cook beans: the glass bottle was stripped of its straw cover and filled with dried beans, water, and aromatic herbs, then placed among hot coals that slowly cooked the beans.

The fiasco is still used today by local winemakers and is the star of the Carro Matto parade in Florence, a cart made up of around 1,500 wine flasks that arrive in the city from Rufina on the fourth Saturday of September.

Although ordinary wine bottles are used today, the fiasco is still a constant presence on Tuscan tables, especially in the homes of grandparents, who still buy wine from relatives with vineyards and small local producers, stored in the iconic straw-covered bottle.