In an informative and entertaining book, sculptor Matthew Spender takes readers on a captivating tour of his adopted homeland, Tuscany--a region unsurpassed in a richness of history, artistry, and culture. "A rare delight".--The Boston Globe. Photographs.
Ren Sawyer and Lizzy Harper live completely different lives. He’s a rock star with a secret he can no longer live with. She’s a regular person whose husband stood her up for a long planned anniversary trip. On a flight across the Atlantic headed for Italy, a drunken pity party and untimely turbulence literally drop Lizzy into Ren’s lap. It is the last thing she can imagine ever happening to someone like her. But despite their surface differences, they discover an undeniable pull between them. A pull that leads them both to remember who they had once been before letting themselves be changed by a life they had each chosen. Exploring the streets of Florence and the hills of Tuscany together - two people with seemingly nothing in common - changes them both forever. And what they find in each other is something that might just heal them both.
Criswell's move from New York City to Tuscany was not supposed to go like this. She had envisioned lazy mornings sipping espresso while penning a bestselling novel and jovial group dinners, just like in the movies and books about expatriate life in Italy. Then she met reality: no work, constant struggles with Italian bureaucracy to claim citizenship, and becoming the talk of the town after her torrid affair with a local fruit vendor.
A lavishly illustrated ode to the joys of Tuscany’s people, food, landscapes, and art, from the bestselling author of Under the Tuscan Sun and See You in the Piazza “A love letter to Italy written in precise and passionate language of near-poetic density.”—Newsday In Tuscany celebrates the abundant pleasures of life in Italy as it is lived at home, at festivals, feasts, restaurants and markets, in the kitchen and on the piazza, in the vineyards, fields, and olive groves. Combining essays by Frances Mayes and a chapter by her husband, poet Edward Mayes, with more than 200 full-color photos by photographer Bob Krist, each of this book's five sections highlights a signature aspect of Tuscan life: La Piazza: the locus of Italian village life. With photographs of the shop signs, the outdoor markets, medieval streets, people, their pets and their cars, and snippets of conversations overheard, Mayes reveals the life of the Piazza in her town of Cortona as well as out-of-the-way places such as Volterra, Asciano, Monte San Savino, and Castelmuzio. La Festa: the celebration. Essays and photos of feasts and celebrations, such as the Christmas dinner for twenty-seven at a neighbor's house and a donkey race around the church at Montepulciano Stazione, illustrate how the Tuscans celebrate the seasons--their open ways of friendship, their connection to nature, and most of all, their sense of abundance. Il Campo: the field. Here Edward Mayes evokes the deep sense of the shift of seasons as he picks olives before he and Frances head off to the olive oil mill and enjoy the first bruscette with new oil. La Cucina: the kitchen. An intimate view of the all-important role of the kitchen in Tuscan culture, including photographs of her own kitchen and gardens, menus from great local cooks, the elements of the Tuscan table, dishes with cultural and culinary notes on each, and, of course, delectable recipes. La Bellezza: the beauty. From the quality of the light falling on sublime landscapes in different seasons and Tuscan faces in moments of laughter to a silhouette of cypress trees in the early evening and a wild bird perched on a neigbor's head, In Tuscany features views of beauty that reveal the singular splendor of one of the world's best-loved and most artistic regions.
They had met and married on perilously short acquaintance, she an American chef and food writer, he a Venetian banker. Now they were taking another audacious leap, unstitching their ties with exquisite Venice to live in a roughly renovated stable in Tuscany. Once again, it was love at first sight. Love for the timeless countryside and the ancient village of San Casciano dei Bagni, for the local vintage and the magnificent cooking, for the Tuscan sky and the friendly church bells. Love especially for old Barlozzo, the village mago, who escorts the newcomers to Tuscany’s seasonal festivals; gives them roasted country bread drizzled with just-pressed olive oil; invites them to gather chestnuts, harvest grapes, hunt truffles; and teaches them to caress the simple pleasures of each precious day. It’s Barlozzo who guides them across the minefields of village history and into the warm and fiercely beating heart of love itself. A Thousand Days in Tuscany is set in one of the most beautiful places on earth–and tucked into its fragrant corners are luscious recipes (including one for the only true bruschetta) directly from the author’s private collection.
Newly retired and looking for more than a vacation, John and Nancy Petralia intrepidly pack a few suitcases and head to the "perfect" Italian city for a year. Within days their dream becomes a nightmare. After residing in two Italian cities, negotiating the roads and health care, discovering art, friends, food and customs, the Petralias learn more than they anticipate -- about Italy, themselves, what it means to be American, and what's important in life.
A new history explores how one of Renaissance ItalyÕs leading cities maintained its influence in an era of global exploration, trade, and empire. The Grand Duchy of Tuscany was not an imperial power, but it did harbor global ambitions. After abortive attempts at overseas colonization and direct commercial expansion, as Brian Brege shows, Tuscany followed a different path, one that allowed it to participate in EuropeÕs new age of empire without establishing an empire of its own. The first history of its kind, Tuscany in the Age of Empire offers a fresh appraisal of one of the foremost cities of the Italian Renaissance, as it sought knowledge, fortune, and power throughout Asia, the Americas, and beyond. How did Tuscany, which could not compete directly with the growing empires of other European states, establish a global presence? First, Brege shows, Tuscany partnered with larger European powers. The duchy sought to obtain trade rights within their empires and even manage portions of other statesÕ overseas territories. Second, Tuscans invested in cultural, intellectual, and commercial institutions at home, which attracted the knowledge and wealth generated by EuropeÕs imperial expansions. Finally, Tuscans built effective coalitions with other regional powers in the Mediterranean and the Islamic world, which secured the duchyÕs access to global products and empowered the Tuscan monarchy in foreign affairs. These strategies allowed Tuscany to punch well above its weight in a world where power was equated with the sort of imperial possessions it lacked. By finding areas of common interest with stronger neighbors and forming alliances with other marginal polities, a small state was able to protect its own security while carving out a space as a diplomatic and intellectual hub in a globalizing Europe.
The author takes readers through parts of Tuscany that still remain largely undiscovered and into the kitchens of more than fifty restaurants whose cooks reveal their most authentic recipes.--Jacket flap.
This second book from Dario Castagno is a delightfully honest mix of memoirs from life in the hills of Tuscany's legendary Chianti region. Set on the day the author arrived home after a three-month tour of the United States promoting his first book, A Day in Tuscany compels readers to experience this enchanted corner of Italy through the heart and mind of a true Tuscan. As Castagno sees his beloved hills with fresh eyes and reacquaints himself with the rhythms of home, a flood of recollections of its people and places come to him. Through his engaging narrative, we are transported as well. The sights he sees and people he meets as he takes a one-mile walk through his village during the course of this noteworthy day trigger memories of his childhood and adolescence in Tuscany during the seventies, his experiences as a tour guide in Chianti, and some of the more remarkable people he has known. In addition to stories from his own past, included are oral histories from several village elders.History and the present mingle in this part of the world, and these stories bring both alive. Sometimes funny, often poignant, A Day in Tuscany weaves a magical spell and offers a candid insider's look at the people and culture of a fascinating land.