I worked on developing this pan while I was working as a merchant at Williams-Sonoma. I love the story behind it. This pan was hand-hammered by artisans in Italy. What makes it funny is they are part-time shephards. When there is downtime, our agent would bring wine as a bribe so get them to work on hand-hammering the pots. The belly shape is intentional and works for braising because it circulates the heat at the top more so than a wide-mouth pot.