Montespertoli – Italian cooking influencer Nonna Silvi has died. Silvana Bini, who reached an audience of millions with her Tuscan recipes and short videos, died on the night of October 31 at the age of 85 at her home in Montespertoli, near Florence. Her family announced her death following a brief illness.
The funeral will take place on Monday, November 2, at the Church of Sant’Andrea in Montespertoli. The family has announced that the family-run business will be closed for two days of mourning. Afterward, they plan to continue working together and preserve Bini’s culinary legacy.
Bini was born in Montespertoli in 1941. When her son opened Forno Martini in Castelfiorentino in 2006, she began working there at the age of 65. The bakery later became the setting for the videos that made her cooking famous far beyond Tuscany.
Nonna Silvi: From a Family Business to Social Media Success
Her breakthrough online began in 2022 with a video in which she reacted to a tattoo her grandson had gotten. After that, her recipes took center stage. Her grandsons, Gabriele and Simone Martini, helped her build her social media presence. Among the dishes Bini demonstrated were the Tuscan bread soup ribollita, cakes, and pappardelle with rabbit sauce.
She has about 4.3 million followers on Instagram, about 2.1 million on TikTok, and more than one million on Facebook. These platform figures cannot be added up to give a total number of unique people, because users can follow her on multiple channels. Nevertheless, they show just how wide the reach of her short cooking videos has become.
Her book *Le ricette di una vita* was published in 2023. Her fame also took her abroad: in 2024, she cooked for the Al Thani family in Qatar. At the 2025 TikTok Awards, she was named Creator of the Year.
With her passing, the Italian culinary scene has lost a voice that shared traditional home-style cooking on social media. At the same time, the food business remains a family project. After a period of mourning, her family plans to reopen the business and continue the work that Bini helped sustain well into her later years.
