Florence / Tuscany at the Bookstore

A Summer in Tuscany is an insider's guide to making the Italian vacation more enjoyable. The author gives the reader the confidence to travel to smaller towns where English is often not spoken, to "live Italian." There are lessons to be learned about food, wine, cooking, shopping, driving, and the Italian language. That said, once opened, the book is hard to close. Swanson's writing style is similar to a good conversation with a friend. She writes in a visual way, so that one can see exactly what she describes. The reader feels that they are at her side, whether driving a perilous road, bargaining at the marketplace, dodging snakes, or sipping wine amid the vineyards.

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Tuscany: Inside the Light
by Joel Meyerowitz and Maggie Barrett

Countless books celebrate the magic of Tuscany, but none illuminates its soul more beautifully than this stunning and lyrical volume of photographs by the famed photographer, with an evocative text by novelist Maggie Barrett. Meyerowitz's breathtaking color plates conjure with bewitching grace the delicacy and enduring strength of the light that inspires the fabled Tuscan countryside. His gallery of images - encompassing vineyards and olive groves, meadows and farmlands, venerable villas and lanes lined with cypress trees - transports us to a place of timeless beauty both natural and cultivated. Barrett's prose interludes put into words the wonder our eyes behold as we watch the subtle ways in which the light of Tuscany enacts an endless enchantment. Exquisitely photographed, beautifully written and lavishly produced, this is a matchless gift for lovers of Italy and fine photography, at an incredibly low price.

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Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy
by Frances Mayes

In this memoir of her buying, renovating, and living in an abandoned villa in Tuscany, Frances Mayes reveals the sensual pleasure she found living in rural Italy, and the generous spirit she brought with her. She revels in the sunlight and the color, the long view of her valley, the warm homey architecture, the languor of the slow paced days, the vigor of working her garden, and the intimacy of her dealings with the locals. Cooking, gardening, tiling and painting are never chores, but skills to be learned, arts to be practiced, and above all to be enjoyed. At the same time Mayes brings a literary and intellectual mind to bear on the experience, adding depth to this account of her enticing rural idyll.

Frances Mayes starts off by saying, "I am about to buy a house in a foreign country. A house with the beautiful name of Bramasole." Tall, square and apricot-colored with faded green shutters, the lovely old farm house that Frances and her husband buy is in Tuscany. They return every summer, they tend the olives and grapes, they plant potatoes and build a stone wall. The book has Tuscan soil under its fingernails, Tuscan sun on its back and the flavor of Tuscany throughout.

Why her and not me, you'll be screaming as writer and professor Mayes describes languorous lunches on the patio, local wine flowing freely and olive pits casually pitched toward the nearby stone wall. The image Mayes creates of her house, the Italian countryside, and her summers there with fellow professor Ed and sundry visitors is nothing short of idyllic: Mayes' delightful recipes, evocative descriptions of the nearby village of Cortona, and thoughtful musings on the Italian spirit only add to the pleasure.

If you haven't been to Italy, you'll fall in love with the country after reading this book.

If you have been to Italy, read this book and you'll be seduced by its beauty, deep history and sensuousness. (Knight-Ridder). Featured on the New York Times Bestseller List. "An intense celebration of...the voluptuousness of Italian life."

Paperback 288 pages

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Bella Tuscany: The Sweet Life in Italy
by Frances Mayes

Work's still not completely finished on Bramasole, the Tuscan house that California-based poet and bestselling author Frances Mayes bought a decade ago and has been fixing up every summer since. Nevertheless, in Bella Tuscany, she goes out--in search of Italy and Italian life. The sequel to Under the Tuscan Sun is awash with sensual discovery, from Sicilian markets with "rainbows of shining fish on ice" to the aqueous dream of Venice "shimmering in the diluted sunlight." Wherever she is, Mayes celebrates everyday rituals, such as picking wild asparagus, "dark spears poking out of the dirt ... stalks as thin as yarn" and driving through country rains, as "the green landscape smears across the windshield" for buffalo mozzarella and demijohns of sfuso--bulk wine kept fresh with a slick of olive oil on top. Mayes also ventures into the world of the locals, some "bent as a comma" and others throwing six-hour communion feasts where half a dozen cooks in a barn continually send out heaping platters of pasta with wild boar sauce, roasted lamb, and even the thigh of a giant cow--wrapping up the festivities with honeyed vin santo, grappa, and dancing to the accordion. Capturing the details that enrich the commonplace, in Bella Tuscany Mayes appears less like a visitor and more like someone discovering in Tuscany a real home and a real life.

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Summer's Lease
by John Clifford Mortimer

The official tie-in to Masterpiece Theatre's May presentation of Summer's Lease, starring John Gielgud. The villa near a small Tuscan town is everything the Pargeter family could want for three weeks. But when the idyll turns sour, Molly Pargeter begins to wonder about their mysterious absentee landlord.

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The Hills Of Tuscany: A new life in an old land
by Ferenc Máté

At was the late '80s when Candace and Ferenc Máté abandoned New York for an ancient farmhouse in the hills of Tuscany. After a nomadic, picaresque life, Candace, a painter, and Ferenc, a writer, discovered heaven outside Montepulciano, Italy. Here at last was a place to set down roots. Knowing almost no Italian, and with only fours weeks to find their dream house, they begin the adventure of a lifetime.

Ripe with the rich sensuality of Tuscany, Ference Máté's lush, winsome memoir sweeps us along on their exhilarating, humbling, often hilarious journey…house hunting among ruins with a funghi-mad real estate agent…searching for succulent porcini and white truffles in the dense forest…escaping the brutal summer sun in their stonewalled farmhouse, barefoot on cool terra-cotta floors…sharing mouthwatering feasts, harvesting, grape picking, and wine making with a neighboring farmer. And not least, rediscovering each other and a new life in the enchanted precincts of Tuscany.

" A lighthearted memoir…Máté includes evocative descriptions of the beautiful countryside, in addition to a wealth of mouthwatering menus featuring Tuscan food and wine" - Publishers Weekly

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In response to many requests, we have been able to obtain a small number of copies of a classic book about life in Tuscany. Authored by Elizabeth Romer, first published in 1984 and re-printed in 1996, it continues to win the hearts of all who read it and savor the life of a family who lives as if it were still the turn of the century.

The Tuscan Year

A book recounting a family's everyday life in a green and secret (but real) valley joining Umbria and Tuscany, two of the most historic and beautiful areas of Italy. Those who dwell here live in medieval houses, pray before altarpieces painted by Renaissance masters and prepare their food with the grace and balance instilled into them by hundreds of years of measured civilization. In reading about the family's daily life and the food they grow and prepare, one realizes how the Tuscan cuisine is inextricably bound to the culture and personality of Tuscany and its people..... Month by month, Elizabeth Romer chronicles each season's activities: curing prosciutto and making salame in January, planting and cheesemaking in March, harvesting and threshing corn in July, hunting for wild mushrooms in September, and grape crushing in October. Scattered throughout this lovely calendar are recipes, informally and simply explained - fresh bread and olive oil, grilled mushrooms, broad beans with ham, trout with fresh tomatoes and basil, chicken grilled with fresh sage and garlic, and apples baked with butter, sugar, and lemon peel. Alive with the rythyms of country tradition, THE TUSCAN YEAR is a treasure for the armchair traveler as well as the cook.

Paperback 182 pages

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Botticelli Blue Skies: An American in Florence
by Merrill Joan Gerber

Gerber (creative writing, California Inst. of Technology), an author of seven novels and four volumes of short stories, was not pleased when her husband was invited to teach in Florence, Italy, for three months. She feared leaving behind her family, friends, and home. Filled with humor and honest emotion, this lively tale describes Gerber's initial reluctance to move to a country whose language she did not speak, her eventual acceptance of her fear of travel, and her varied adventures in Florence, which ranged from losing her underwear over the balcony to the surprises of her first grocery shopping trip. Gerber, no traditional traveler, does not shy away from describing her exhaustion during sightseeing trips and her boredom with tour guides. She often seeks out the familiar, purchasing American peanut butter and celebrating the Jewish New Year with an Italian family. The American students studying with her husband also add color to the narrative, with convoluted romantic involvements and relationship angst. An absorbing account of life in another country.

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A Room With a View
by E. M. Forster

E.M. Forster's wickedly funny critique of his people--nineteenth-century middle- and upper-middle-class Britons who traveled abroad. It is also the basis for the wonderful Ivory Merchant film of the same name.

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Florence: A Portrait
by Michael Levey

The usual tourist group's stay in Florence begins with the Duomo, runs through the paintings in the Uffizi, includes a visit to Michaelangelo's "David" and ends with a parade through a handful of churches. But the visitor who first reads Sir Michael Levey's portrait of the city will find rewards off that well-worn track. The city, a self-styled "new Athens" supported a wealth of artists, sculptors, humanists, and scholars, not to mention more than its share of wealthy individuals, who taken together, helped turn Florence into one of the world's great provincial outposts. Layering telling details, little-known facts and carefully explained social and intellectual history, Levey weaves a dense tale of this charming city, from the Middle Ages to the Quattrocento, through the Renaissance and on up to the early years of this century.

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Florence: A Delicate Case (Writer and the City, 3)
by David Leavitt

David Leavitt brings the wonders and mysteries of Florence alive, illuminating why it is, and always has been, one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. The third in the critically-acclaimed Writer and the City Series - in which some of the world's finest novelists reveal the secrets of the cities they know best - Florence is a lively account of expatriate life in the 'city of the lily'.

Why has Florence always drawn so many English and American visitors? (At the turn of the century, the Anglo-American population numbered more than thirty thousand.) Why have men and women fleeing sex scandals traditionally settled here? What is it about Florence that has made it so fascinating - and so repellent - to artists and writers over the years?

Moving fleetly between present and past and exploring characters both real and fictional, Leavitt's narrative limns the history of the foreign colony from its origins in the middle of the nineteenth century until its demise under Mussolini, and considers the appeal of Florence to figures as diverse as Tchaikovsky, E.M. Forster, Ronald Firbank, and Mary McCarthy. Lesser-known episodes in Florentine history-the moving of Michelangelo's David, and the construction of temporary bridges by black American soldiers in the wake of the Second World War-are contrasted with images of Florence today (its vast pizza parlors and tourist culture). Leavitt also examines the city's portrayal in such novels and films as A Room with a View, The Portrait of a Lady and Tea with Mussolini.

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Vanilla Beans & Brodo: Real Life in the Hills of Tuscany
by Isabella Dusi

Amazon Reader's Review: "I have lived in Italy for the past six years and have read many books on Italian life. This is one of the best as it truly shows how Italians really live, think, and gives such a wonderful description of the historical and political aspects of a hill-top village that I was even tempted to immediately begin reading it again to be sure I did not miss anything.

I recently visited Montalcino and came across this book for the first time. I do think a different title would have put it on the best seller's list as it is much better than Under the Tuscan Sun or others I have read. Well written in the descriptions of people and places. We are recommending it to our book club! This is a must read before visiting any hill town in Tuscany - but especially beautiful Montalcino. After reading this book, I cannot wait to return."

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The Most Beautiful Villages of Tuscany
by James Bentley, Hugh Palmer (Photographer)

With the recent popularity of such notable books as Frances Mayes' Under the Tuscan Sun and Elizabeth Romer's The Tuscan Year: Life and Food in an Italian Valley, a legion of new Italia fans are finding out what many already know: the charm of Tuscany cannot be denied. In The Most Beautiful Villages of Tuscany, author James Bentley and photographer Hugh Palmer offer a decidedly unique view of this remarkable region. Focusing on thirty-six villages and towns from all over Tuscany--chosen for "both their intrinsic beauty and for the part they have played in Tuscan history and culture"--the gorgeous full-color photographs, accompanied by superb accounts of each village, truly "bring the region to life, evoking the richness of architecture and landscape, and bringing out the charm of the Tuscan people." The final chapter is devoted to useful travel information, including passages on hotels and restaurants, market days and festivals, as well as a select bibliography and detailed map of the region. As beautiful as it is informative and entertaining, The Most Beautiful Villages of Tuscany is "the perfect visual tribute to the timeless beauty of these small towns and villages."

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The Most Beautiful Country Towns of Tuscany (Most Beautiful Villages Series)
by James Bentley, Alex Ramsay (Photographer)

Author of the highly successful The Most Beautiful Villages of Tuscany, James Bentley, with photographer Alex Ramsay, has now turned his attention to the equally beautiful towns of Tuscany. Traveling from north to south, as in the Villages volume, we encounter first the towns with substantial Etruscan and Romanesque features, then the walled towns of central Tuscany, followed by the coastal and thermal communities of the south. The country towns described and photographed in this book have been selected not only to exemplify the remarkable variety of this part of Italy but also because they embody its exceptional artistic and architectural heritage. There are works by Luca della Robbia and Donatello in Impruneta; Piero della Francesca was born in Sansepolcro. The architects of the Renaissance have left many masterpieces as well, often under the patronage of powerful local families: Michelozzo built the Villa Medici near Fiesole, while Giuliano da Sangallo designed the Medici fortress at Sansepolcro. Other aspects of the cultural heritage of these towns are more ancient: Volterra has the remains of Etruscan walls, and the Romans used the thermal springs at Chianciano Terme. A noted characteristic of Tuscan towns is their gastronomy. The wines of Chianti are well-paired with the beef of the Chiana Valley, while bread is justly celebrated in the area around Montecatini. Other markets feature non-gastronomic delights: alabaster in Volterra, flowers in Pescia, books in Pontremoli. Twenty of the most beautiful towns of this opulent land are treated in this visual and textual feast by Alex Ramsay and James Bentley, which is completed by a guide to the principal sites, events, hotels, and restaurants of each town. 273 color illustrations.

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Tuscan Elements
by Alexandra Black, Simon McBride (Photographer)

The Tuscan house, whether a simple homestead or expansive villa, has become one of the most sought-after living environments. Its design is virtually unchanged since the Middle Ages, when landowners in the golden hills of Tuscany built country retreats with gardens, porticoes, and loggias. The landowners often drew upon the natural resources of the region-and it is these materials that give the Tuscan house its unique character. Tuscan Elements brings to life the colors, textures, and aesthetics of the Tuscan house-the magnificent stone and marble work; the hardwoods like chestnut, oak, and elm; earthy terra-cotta and brick; and the all-important water feature, used in ponds, fountains, and pools. This unique, visual sourcebook deconstructs the typical Tuscan home and examines its basic components in dazzling detail, from the tiled roof and floor, thick stone exterior walls, and vine-covered loggia to the exposed wooden beams, luminous frescoes, and the sunny courtyard garden with an ancient well or exquisite swimming pool. Filled with extraordinary photos by world-famous interiors photographer Simon McBride, Tuscan Elements emphasizes living life well with a home that nurtures and comforts, accentuates the importance of family and friends, and entertains with good food and drink. For anyone interested in infusing their present home and garden with a little bit of Tuscany, here is a delightful source of never- ending inspiration

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Tuscany Interiors
by Paolo Rinaldi

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Private Tuscany
by Elizabeth Helman-Minchilli, Elizabeth Helman Minchilli, Simon McBride (Photographer)

Tuscany's hill towns and countryside have enthralled inhabitants and visitors for centuries--the golden light in the afternoons, the grape arbors, and the rolling hillsides dotted with rustic farmhouses and villas. Private Tuscany invites us into these dwellings, giving us a glimpse of how life is lived in this warm, inviting place.

The homes featured in this gorgeous volume are as enchanting as the Tuscan towns and hillsides they're built on. Many embody a style we've come to associate with Tuscany: dark-timbered kitchens with dried herbs and garlic ropes hung from the rafters, original terra-cotta tile floors, large-windowed living rooms, and artfully frescoed walls. There are centuries-old furnishings crafted by skilled Italian artisans and elegantly manicured gardens containing hidden grottos and classical statuary. But the homes also reflect the special touches of the people who occupy them. For instance, a theater lover displays his exquisite collection of miniature theaters in the salon; the daughter of a villa owner paints traditional murals on the walls and mosaic patterns on the floors.

Simon McBride's photographs skillfully capture the magic of these Tuscan homes and feature a variety of residences, from simple farmhouses to grand villas and palaces. The book's four chapters divide the homes into types: rustic, classic, grand, and modern. An index at the back serves as an introduction to Tuscany's pleasures, providing contact information for sampling the region's wine and produce, fine dining, hotels and houses, gardens, and crafts.

Several of the homeowners featured in Private Tuscany have gone to painstaking lengths to restore these buildings after decades, or even centuries, of neglect. The results, from the simplest farmhouse kitchen to an elaborately frescoed dining room, are breathtaking.

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In Maremma: Life and a House in Southern Tuscany
by David Leavitt

Thanks to authors like Peter Mayle and Frances Mayes, a whole subset of travel memoirs is now devoted to the theme of restoring old houses in Europe. While most authors use the home as a vehicle to examine the surrounding culture, David Leavitt and Mark Mitchell tilt their measure decidedly on the side of home decor. "Nothing tells you more about a people than their houses," Leavitt and Mitchell write, as they set out to "construct a past based on our own private notions of comfort, upon which we could glance with pleasure in some hypothetical future." While initially daunted by the task of restoring a country house in bureaucracy-plagued Italy, the two dive in with gusto when they find Podere Fiume (River Farm) in Maremma, a little known part of Tuscany. Unlived in for more than 20 years, the farmhouse's downstairs is composed entirely of animal stalls, complete with stone troughs, while its two acres are lined with olive and fruit trees and a small creek. The authors tell of tapping into the Italian tradition of craftsmanship, taking on iron-fitters, lamp and lampshade makers, wood carvers, and furniture restorers. They design their own couch, reconstruct an 1803 fireplace, and commission a copy of an 18th-century Venetian bookcase with secret doors for CDs. They even recount the paint colors and fabric designs they consider. Needless to say, the density of detail they devote to their decor will mostly be of interest to those who pore over design magazines like House and Garden and World of Interiors, as the authors do. Fortunately, they also devote some of their short but precise chapters to humorous and telling bits about Italy--the habits, feuds, and "poetry and madness" of Italian bureaucracy--as well as to portraits of some of their more interesting neighbors, such as Pepe the iron-fitter and Pina the restaurateur. Written from the point of view of expatriates who live among but are not of, In Maremma offers an interesting, sometimes overdone and other times right-on-target portrait of a less glamorous if no less interesting part of Tuscany than Frances Mayes's.

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The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall
by Christopher Hibbert

It was a dynasty with more wealth, passion, and power than the houses of Windsor, Kennedy, and Rockefeller combined. It shaped all of Europe and controlled politics, scientists, artists, and even popes, for three hundred years. It was the house of Medici, patrons of Botticelli, Michelangelo and Galileo, benefactors who turned Florence into a global power center, and then lost it all. Hibbert delves into the lives of the Medici family, whose legacy of increasing self-indulgence and sexual dalliance eventually led to its self-destruction. With twenty-four pages of black-and-white illustrations, this timeless saga is one of Quill's strongest-selling paperbacks.

Christopher Hibbert, an Oxford graduate, has written more than fifty books, including Wellington: A Personal History,London: The Biography of a City, Redcoats and Rebels, and The Destruction of Lord Raglan. He lives with his family in Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire, England.

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Renaissance Florence: The Invention of a New Art
by Richard Turner

Turner's (arts and humanities, New York Univ.) introduction to early Renaissance Florence neatly articulates the economic, political, and religious milieu of the city's artistic efflorescence. Within that context, he artfully limns an image of the expanding urban fabric of the 14th and 15th centuries. Besides evoking the problems of artistic function, patronage, and the training and professional life of the artist, the author articulates the intricate stylistic byways that mark the onset of the new Renaissance approach in sculpture, architecture, and painting, including a survey of the interior decoration of monasteries and homes and a contextual overview of some of the key monuments of the later 15th century. While unsurprising in its approach and conclusions, this carefully etched work is more than adequate as a primer to the study of the early Renaissance in Florence.

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The City of Florence: Historical Vistas and Personal Sightings
by R. W. B. Lewis

Forget April in Paris, autumn in New York, and even Disney theme parks; the world's most magical place is Florence. Rare is the poet or novelist who comes away from that Italian city uninspired (even those who may not have enjoyed a room with a view during their visit). Accurately described as a "deeply personal and learned labor of love," this volume is literary historian Lewis's erudite paean to Florentine charms. Lewis, most noted for his highly regarded biography of Edith Wharton (1975), skillfully interweaves his personal associations with the city, which began during military service in World War II, with those of more celebrated visitors over the centuries. A generous portion of history is added. Lewis has a vast store of knowledge about many subjects but never sounds pedantic; he assumes that his readers are also knowledgeable. For those who aren't, or who have never been to Florence, his book may demand too much concentration and commitment.

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The Feud That Sparked the Renaissance: How Brunelleschi and Ghiberti Changed the Art World
by Paul Robert Walker

The author of 20 books on subjects ranging from the Italian Renaissance to the American West, Walker here pairs off proto-architect Filippo Brunelleschi and doormaker Lorenzo Ghiberti in an often engaging version of Quattrocento Smackdown. Pitting the two masters against each other in the competition for the sculpted bronze doors of the baptistery, Walker re-creates the intrigues of 15th-century Florence as the young, possibly illegitimate Ghiberti walks away with the lucrative commission and creates one of the Western world's great pieces of art. Spurred by his loss to Ghiberti, Brunelleschi goes on to greater fame and even greater fortune as the architect of the dome for Florence's cathedral (and rediscovers linear perspective in his spare time). Though Brunelleschi and Ghiberti share billing in the title, Walker is clearly more enamored of the former, and the bulk of the story is his. Using an estimable cache of documentary materials and a supporting cast that includes the sculptor Donatello and the painter Masaccio, Walker makes a fine circumstantial case for an artistic feud. Whether such a "feud" really existed will never be known. Recommended for public libraries and young adult collections.

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A Garden in Lucca: Finding Paradise in Tuscany
by Paul Gervais

Today the dream of having a retreat in Tuscany may be all too common, but novelist Gervais and his partner, Gil, acquired their very own overgrown Renaissance dwelling nearly two decades ago. Gracious and engaging, the author imbues his account of taking up residence and making a garden in the Italian countryside near Lucca with a demeanor that promises to entrance both garden lovers and armchair travelers. Arriving at the book's midpoint, the reader feels regret to hear of financial considerations that result in a decision to sell the now spiffily restored house and grounds. Sadness turns to relief when a real estate deal with an unscrupulous billionaire falls apart. Turning to a succession of ambitious gardening projects with renewed energy, Gervais interweaves planting plans and landscape alterations with vignettes of great meals, stimulating side trips, and a colony of fascinating Tuscan characters. In prose filtered through a congenial lens, Gervais colors all he catches sight of with inimitable warmth and wit.

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Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture
by Ross King

Filippo Brunelleschi's design for the dome of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence remains one of the most towering achievements of Renaissance architecture. Completed in 1436, the dome remains a remarkable feat of design and engineering. Its span of more than 140 feet exceeds St Paul's in London and St Peter's in Rome, and even outdoes the Capitol in Washington, D.C., making it the largest dome ever constructed using bricks and mortar. The story of its creation and its brilliant but "hot-tempered" creator is told in Ross King's delightful Brunelleschi's Dome.

Both dome and architect offer King plenty of rich material. The story of the dome goes back to 1296, when work began on the cathedral, but it was only in 1420, when Brunelleschi won a competition over his bitter rival Lorenzo Ghiberti to design the daunting cupola, that work began in earnest. King weaves an engrossing tale from the political intrigue, personal jealousies, dramatic setbacks, and sheer inventive brilliance that led to the paranoid Filippo," who was so proud of his inventions and so fearful of plagiarism," finally seeing his dome completed only months before his death. King argues that it was Brunelleschi's improvised brilliance in solving the problem of suspending the enormous cupola in bricks and mortar (painstakingly detailed with precise illustrations) that led him to "succeed in performing an engineering feat whose structural daring was without parallel." He tells a compelling, informed story, ranging from discussions of the construction of the bricks, mortar, and marble that made up the dome, to its subsequent use as a scientific instrument by the Florentine astronomer Paolo Toscanelli.

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The Miracles of Santo Fico
by D.L. Smith

From Amazon: If you savored Joanne Harris's Chocolat or Frances Mayes's Under the Tuscan Sun, if you dream of honeymooning in San Gimignano or you've ever stood in a specialty foods store sighing over imported olive oil, you will fall hard for The Miracles of Santo Fico. By turns sentimental, romantic, and mischievous, D.L. Smith's debut novel is set in a small Italian hill town, like hundreds of others, that has been in decline for 60 years. Remote and dusty, with a dry fountain in its modest piazza, Santo Fico only attracts tourists when local boys change the road signs. But there is one hidden treasure in the grubby old church--a perfectly preserved fresco of St. Francis that looks strangely, miraculously like the work of Giotto--and when a black sheep named Leo Pizzolo tempts God by trying to profit from it, he must come up with a few miracles of his own to save the town. Expect picturesque charm, old wrongs made right, and a happy ending for all.

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A Tuscan Childhood
by Kinta Beevor

What could be more romantic than living in an ancient fortress, dining in its rooftop garden, and sleeping under the stars? English artists and intellectuals like the author's parents (painter Aubrey Waterfield and journalist Lina Duff Gordon) have traditionally adored the Italian countryside, and their daughter's enchanting memoir describes the happy haven they found near the Tuscan town of Aulla. Kinta was only 5 in 1916 when she made her first trip by pony trap up the steep road to their hilltop abode, and neither exile to English boarding school nor the Second World War could keep her away for long. Famous friends like Bernard Berenson and D.H. Lawrence make cameo appearances, but the real stars are the earthy, dignified Tuscan peasants who worked for her family. Through them, the author immersed herself in the timeless rhythms of rural existence. The text's highlights include a vivid account of vendemmia, the grape harvest, and the glories of Italian cuisine. Anyone who can read her descriptions of the local polenta, zuppa di verdura, and other meticulously prepared dishes without feeling a rumble in the stomach truly has no interest in food. Though Beevor's final chapters note the changes that have come to Tuscany in the postwar era, her recollections pay loving tribute to a way of life that truly seems eternal.

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Within Tuscany/Reflections on a Time and Place
by Matthew Spender

Living since 1967 with his artist wife and their two Italian-born daughters on a farm near Siena, sculptor Spender centers these diverting vignettes and essays on one of his adopted country's historically and culturally richest provinces. Photos.

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Iris Origo: Marchesa of Val D'Orcia
by Caroline Moorehead

Eagerly exchanging an existence of idle privilege and social intrigue for one of hard work and literary distinction, Origo led a life characterized by vitality and commitment. Born in 1902 into a wealthy American family, she and her British mother permanently left the U.S. after the untimely death of her father in 1910. Traveling extensively throughout Europe, they eventually settled outside of Florence, becoming prominent members of the stuffy Anglo-Florentine community of expatriates. Asserting her trademark independence, she married Antonio Origo, the illegitimate son of a cavalry officer-sculptor. Together Antonio and Iris purchased and totally revitalized an arid Tuscan valley and renovated a crumbling estate. With virtually no experience and few practical skills, they transformed themselves into agrarian pioneers and their extensive acreage into a prosperous working community supporting more than 200 people. During the war years, they quietly supported the Allies, offering refuge to countless numbers of partisans and prisoners of war. In addition to these accomplishments, Iris also buried one child and raised two more, conducted several heart-wrenching extramarital affairs, and distinguished herself as both a biographer and a literary critic. Moorehead has exquisitely captured the energy and the essence of an aristocrat resolutely committed to her land, her craft, and her nontraditional lifestyle. A magnificent biography, so absorbing and so full of fascinating characters and descriptive details that it reads like fiction.

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War in Val D'Orcia 1943-44: A Diary
by Iris D'Origo

A classic of the Second World War, this is a simple chronicle of daily life at La Foce, a manor in the Tuscan no-man's land bracketed by foreign invasion and civil war. Deeply dramatic and tender, it tells the story of an Anglo-American woman who married an Italian nobleman, bought a ramshackle old Renaissance estate near Montepulciano, and used it to shelter sixty orphans along with countless escaped Allied prisoners during the German occupation of her lands.

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Images and Shadows
by Iris Origo

"A small classic of autobiography." Iris Origo was born in 1902 and was instantly catapulted into a life of "unfair advantages of birth, education, money, environment and opportunity." But she used this birth-right wisely, and her legacy includes a string of books beloved and admired equally by historians, biographers and readers; as well as the verdant green Tuscan valleys seen so often in films and commercials: before Origo they were dust-ridden wastelands. After a stormy childhood between her family's ancestral estate in Long Island and her grandfather's castle in Ireland, she married a Florentine nobleman and bought La Foce, an entire valley near Montepulciano. For the next fifty years she worked tirelessly improving the land, bringing the peasants out of the feudal civilization they had lived in up until that time, and saving children from the brutal incursions of the Nazis.

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La Foce: A Garden and Landscape in Tuscany (Penn Studies in Landscape Architecture)
by Benedetta Origo (Editor), Laurie Olin, John Dixon Hunt, Morna Livingston

Amazon Reader's Review: "La Foce is an attractive Tuscan villa which is presented here in text and pictures. The text offers a picture of one family's history, including interesting archival photographs and drawings. What makes this book truly spectacular, however, are Morna Livingston's photographs, presented in a beautiful layout and printed on a silky white paper which heightens the luminesence of the incredible Tuscan colors. In more than one hundred photographs Livingiston captures the villa's gardens in every light and season. There are stunning images of the broader landscape and fascinating details of both the architecture and the plants. For those who have wondered just what the attraction of Tuscany is, you will find the answer here. For those who already know, this will serve as a reminder."

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The Merchant of Prato: Francesco Di Marco Datini, 1335-1410
by Iris Origo

In the first half of the 20th century, this wonderful writer acquired the diary of a wealthy 14th-century Tuscan merchant, and then set about painting an intricate portrait of his life, as gleaned from his daily entries. A must for history lovers.

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