Tuscany [antikvár]

Introduction H ow difficult it is to ivrite about Tuscany. One is swamped by the tritest of clichés to the point tvhere it appears impossible to find even a single phrase that has not already been used by an art historian, a poet, a naturalist, an anthropologist or an ordinary, casual visitor. There is a certain magnetism about Tuscany, and there can be very fem of us, Italian or otherwise, who have not at some point exclaimed "Oh, how I'd like to live in Florence!", or "How I'd love a cottage in the Chianti hills!". Mention the "Sienese countryside" and up pop idyllic images done to death by the advertising industry: long twisting roads cutting through bright green fields punctuated by vineyards and beautiful stone-built farmhouses, a pair of grazing horses and, eoery now and then, a village inhabited by cheerful farmers and fairy tale peasant girls. To say nothing of the greatest of Tuscany's friends, those foreigners for whom the Grand Tour has never gone out of fashion. Following in the footsteps of Byron, Dickens, Rogers, Wordsworth and Forster, they return in perhaps less sophisticated, but decidedly more numerous and worldly groups. They overlook the myriad incongruities, the eccentric museum opening hours, the pizzas served in front of the Palazzo della Signoria, the "pannini" offered in Piazza del Campo and even the tacky, illuminated plastic reproductions of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. They could hardly return to Hamburg, Minneapolis or Osaka and say that yes, they had wanted to take a look at Tuscany, but their time was up after Rome and Venice. For we Italians, on the other hand, Tuscany is a rather distant "mamma", almost too beautifully famous. Not arrogant by any means, willing as she is to put herself on show and invite us to share in her riches, but nevertheless well aware of her position. In contrast with Rome, torn between her imperial glory and the "trattorie" of the Trastevere, between the ministerial limousines and Cinecitta, between nobility and "the people", in contrast with Venice where the tourist industry has succeeded in destroying the magic, Florence has preserved its essentially provincial character; ready to welcome, but just as quick to close in on itself. Content with its glorious past, its brief tenure as capital under the Savoias, but even more content to have returned to its role as Queen of that most peaceful, photographed, painted and described of lands. With its crown of art cities and less obvious, but none the less brilliant, minor gems. With its harsh, rocky islands and generous but occasionally treacherous mountains. And with that musical language with its beautifully judged accents and tones. Although Italian was created here, the Tuscans speak a language of their own, the full range of which no imitator could ever hope to reproduce. It is the language of a deep-rooted culture but one so felicitous as to grace each and every one of the region's inhabitants, making them all, if only for an instant, Dante's favourite grandson.