TUSCANY, travel notes

Tuscany, a region of wonderful landscapes and culture. Travel destination, theme of art works, mother of saints, kings and sinners. loved and declaimed by many. In this blog we continue to talk about our region, and let some others do it a bit too…

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to write a text dedicated to the new tin box by the Mattei Biscuit Factory: Tosca, recently on sale in our stores and through our retailers, it is inspired by our region.
On that occasion, it seemed right to leave it up to the two illustrators who created it.
Nevertheless while I was researching Tuscany, to give a slightly broader image of it than the "parochial" gaze with which us local people from Prato, Florence, Pisa, Pistoia, etc. are used to observing it, I got lost in the vast sea of studies, quotes, dedications, and proverbs which are dedicated to Tuscany.
So as there are so many I decided to pick just a few. However, being absolutely useless at geography, I decided to cover all the basics to start with, just to refresh!!

Tuscany is a region of central Italy and borders with 5 other regions: Liguria, Emilia-Romagna, Marche, Umbria, Lazio and is bordered by the Tyrrhenian Sea where its archipelago is also located.
It has 9 provinces: Arezzo, Grosseto, Livorno, Lucca, Massa-Carrara, Pisa, Pistoia, Prato, Siena, as well as Florence, the Metropolitan City, which is its capital. 

The variety of its conformation (Alps, hills, sea) has meant that cities and towns have flourished over the centuries, influencing their relevant cultures at the same time too. We have this confirmed by J. Heurgon, a well-known French Latinist and etruscologist who writes:

"It is truly impressive to note that twice, once in the seventh century B.C. and secondly in the 15th century AD, almost the same region of central Italy, ancient Etruria and modern Tuscany, was the breeding ground of Italian civilization.”

J.W. Goethe in his Journey to Italy was struck "by the beautiful and majestic aspect that public work projects, roads and bridges have in Tuscany. Everything is sturdy and clean at the same time, an attempt is made to combine practicality, utility and elegance, an alacrity can be seen everywhere.” PHOTO 1 Ponte vecchio photo by Moggi Meanwhile Guido Piovene much more recently reported this image: "This is the Tuscany of great poets, saints, rebels and visionaries, the one that took our literature to the greatest heights: Tuscany, also full of convents and hermitages, which cover it all, from Verna to Monte Senario .”

Meanwhile Guido Piovene much more recently reported this image:

"This is the Tuscany of great poets, saints, rebels and visionaries, the one that took our literature to the greatest heights: Tuscany, also full of convents and hermitages, which cover it all, from Verna to Monte Senario .”

On the other hand, it is also known that the Tuscans do not have a great reputation...

“The great virtue of the Tuscans, that of being foul-mouthed. And you hear it not only in those with a vulgar mouth and gossipers, but in Dante, Boccaccio, Sacchetti, Magnifico, Machiavelli, and Fazio degli Uberti, Cecco Angiolieri, Folgore from San Gimignano, not to mention Berni, Burchiello, Aretino, Lasca. Even in San Bernardino of Siena you hear that virtue of the Tuscans." Malaparte knew it well in fact in Maledetti Toscani he also wrote: “Tuscans have the habit of never greeting anyone first, not even in Heaven. And this, even God knows. You will see that he will greet you first.”

I will leave you with one more quote from Malaparte, he was from Prato just like us, because, to tell you the truth, being Tuscan, it is difficult not to be parochial and not to love our region and its citizens.

“If it is difficult to be Italian, a very difficult thing is to be Tuscan much more than from Abruzzo, Lombard, Rome, Piedmont, Naples, or French, German, Spanish, English. And not because we Tuscans are better or worse than others, Italians or foreigners, but because, thank God, we are different from any other nation: it is something that is in us, in our profound nature, something different from what others have inside.”

But basically for us who were born and raised here, our region is simply "home".
“Tuscany was the only region in the world that was a «home»: the rest of Italy, also France, England, Spain, Germany, were Republics, Monarchies, Empires, not «homes».”

So?
What are you waiting for?
…an invitation?
... just know that you will always be WELCOME to our home!!!

L. Pandolfini