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1 March 1380: 600 years ago the chiefs of the most important families of Maniago met to discuss and to take decisions on various matters: among them there was Nicolussio, the first smith of Maniago.
During the Middle Ages water had become an essential source of energy since it supplied power to drive mills, sawmills, bellows, spinning-mills and forges. The first anvil started to operate in Maniago thanks to the authorization to canalize into an irrigation ditch the Colvera stream obtained by Count Nicolò of Maniago from the Venetian Republic.
In the 70s the introduction of modern specific and precise machines brought about a huge increase in the overall production, Maniago was dynamic and blooming with more than 200 artisanal firms, 15 medium size enterprises and 4 industries. The new technologies paved the way to a diversification and specialization of the production to include other products in addition to classic knives such as dental and surgical instruments, scissors and shears, kitchenware, corkscrews, potato-peelers, sports and sub knives, turbine-engine blades, fine arts spatulas and many more. In those years Maniago supplied the German Federal Republic Army with more than 380.000 pocket knives.