Raise your hand if you knew that blue was probably born here. In Italy, precisely in this perimeter of the Marche region. We are in the municipality of Jesi and it is from here that a long history began, which dates back to 1200 when the fashion for blue began. The Romans preferred reds, but blue will eventually play the lion's share of fabrics around the world. It happened with the uniforms of the French military, it will happen with blue jeans.  After a series of researches, Massimo Baldini, director of the color factory "Oasi colori" from the Marches, the oasis of natural pigments decides to sow the ford plant from which blue is obtained which, until 1600, was the only one in Europe. 

From this date on, the ford blue did not have an easy life, as it was supplanted by the indigo which made it risk extinction. The indigo of the Indigoferae contains the same coloring principle as the ford, but in a concentration from ten to twenty-five times higher; this quality allowed him to have equally advantageous costs compared to the ford, winning the challenge in international trade. Massimo's research  he starts from the study of two countrymen, Don Corrado Leonardi who was a priest and had the keys to the abandoned churches of Montefeltro, where he finds beautiful tablecloths decorated with the blue ford. AND  Delio Bischi, another man from the Marche who finds millstones in the Montefeltro area and understands that they could not be made from wheat or grapes, but millstones to grind the ford and make the cuccagne (balls of dried ford leaves) that the peasants sold in the markets to other professionals who  they fermented them with urine and vinegar, thus extracting a granular which was sold to the dyers who made the last extraction in the pot to make the pigment. 

In the same area of Montefeltro, in fact, urinals were also found placed in front of the taverns to collect the urine of those who,  it was hoped he drank more than he should, thus offering an excellent fermentation agent  of the cuccagne. 

Massimo's project starts from the study of these discoveries and decides to recultivate and work the ford as it once was and it is thanks to people like Massimo Baldini that that blue is reborn and continues to color garments, fabrics and more.