The name by which we refer to this extraordinarily creative era was coined by a Tuscan, Giorgio Vasari, who wrote in the sixteenth century of the “rebirth” of the arts with the humanism of Giotto and his successors.Ī population of around 3.5 million, with some 400,000 in Florence, its capital. But what makes this area pivotal to the culture not just of Italy but of all Europe is, of course, the Renaissance period (see box, p.8), whose masterpieces of painting, sculpture and architecture are an intrinsic part of any tour. Other great Tuscan writers of the period – Petrarch and Boccaccio – reinforced its status, and in the nineteenth century Manzoni came to Tuscany to purge his vocabulary of any impurities while working on The Betrothed, the most famous of all Italian novels. The national language evolved from Tuscan dialect, a supremacy ensured by Dante, who wrote the Divine Comedy in the vernacular of his birthplace, Florence.
The expatriate’s perspective may be distorted, but the central provinces – especially in Tuscany – are indeed the essence of Italy in many ways. Shelley referred to Tuscany as a “paradise of exiles”, and ever since his time the English, in particular, have seen the region as an ideal refuge from a sun-starved and overcrowded homeland. It’s a stereotype that has long held an irresistible attraction for northern Europeans. Tuscany & Umbria Tuscany and Umbria harbour the classic landscapes of Italy, familiar from a thousand Renaissance paintings, with their backdrop of medieval hill-towns, rows of cypress trees, vineyards and olive groves, and artfully sited villas and farmhouses. | INTRODUCTION | WHE RE TO GO | W HE N TO GO The great outdoors colour section following p.504ģ Cypress trees and umbrella pines, Val d’Orcia Giambologna’s Oceano, the Bargello, Florence
The Palio colour se ction following p.344 651 A directory of artists and architects. Tim Jepson, Jonathan Buckley and Mark Ellingham
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