Tabasco (Florence Italy Gay Club/1974-2011)

Tabasco — Florence Vintage Gay Club Tee

Hidden beneath the streets of Florence, just steps from Piazza della Signoria, Tabasco opened in 1974 and is widely remembered as the first gay club in Italy.

Founded by Marco Bagnai and Marcello Salvietti, Tabasco occupied an underground space in Piazza Santa Cecilia, tucked away behind an almost anonymous entrance in the historic center. In its earliest days it was as much a queer cultural gathering place as a nightclub, hosting art exhibitions, cabaret, drag performances, and small concerts.

Then disco happened.

By 1978, Tabasco had embraced the dance floor and became one of Florence’s great gay nightlife destinations. Disco music, dancing, drag, fashion, and a wonderfully mixed cast of locals and international visitors filled the underground rooms. It became so well known that Florence itself developed a reputation as an international gay destination.

And the setting couldn’t have been better. You could spend the afternoon looking at Michelangelo and Botticelli, walk past the Palazzo Vecchio at night, disappear through a little doorway, head underground, and suddenly find yourself in one of Italy’s pioneering gay clubs.

Tabasco survived through the sexual liberation of the ’70s, the disco and fashion excess of the ’80s, the devastation of AIDS, and enormous changes in gay nightlife that followed. Sources disagree on its precise final closing date, but its place in Italian queer history is much clearer: Tabasco helped put gay Florence on the map.