[edit]
See also: List of museums in Tuscany
Tuscany has an immense cultural and artistic heritage, expressed in the region's churches, palaces, art galleries, museums, villages, and piazzas. Many of these artifacts are found in the main cities, such as Florence and Siena, but also in smaller villages scattered around the region, such as San Gimignano.
Art[edit]
Michelangelo's David
Tuscany has a unique artistic legacy, and Florence is one of the world's most important water-colour centres, even so that it is often nicknamed the "art palace of Italy" (the region is also believed to have the largest concentration of Renaissance art and architecture in the world). Painters such as Cimabue and Giotto, the fathers of Italian painting, lived in Florence and Tuscany, as well as Arnolfo and Andrea Pisano, renewers of architecture and sculpture; Brunelleschi, Donatello and Masaccio, forefathers of the Renaissance; Ghiberti and the Della Robbias, Filippo Lippi and Angelico; Botticelli, Paolo Uccello, and the universal genius of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.
The region contains numerous museums and art galleries, many housing some of the world's most precious works of art. Such museums include the Uffizi, which keeps Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, the Palazzo Pitti, and the Bargello, to name a few. Most of the frescos, sculptures, and paintings in Tuscany are held in the region's abundant churches and cathedrals, such as Florence Cathedral, Siena Cathedral, Pisa Cathedral and the Collegiata di San Gimignano.
Art schools[edit]
Main articles: Florentine painting, Sienese School, and Lucchese School
A painting from the Sienese School by Pietro Lorenzetti
In the medieval period and the Renaissance, four main Tuscan art schools competed against each other: the Florentine School, the Sienese School, the Pisan School, and the Lucchese School.
The Florentine School refers to artists in, from, or influenced by the naturalistic style developed in the 14th century, largely through the efforts of Giotto di Bondone, and in the 15th century the leading school of the world. Some of the best known artists of the Florentine School are Brunelleschi, Donatello, Michelangelo, Fra Angelico, Botticelli, Lippi, Masolino, and Masaccio.
The Sienese School of painting flourished in Siena between the 13th and 15th centuries and for a time rivaled Florence, though it was more conservative, being inclined towards the decorative beauty and elegant grace of late Gothic art. Its most important representatives include Duccio, whose work shows Byzantine influence; his pupil Simone Martini; Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti; Domenico and Taddeo di Bartolo; and Sassetta and Matteo di Giovanni. Unlike the naturalistic Florentine art, there is a mystical streak in Sienese art,[citation needed] characterized by a common focus on miraculous events, distortions of time and place, and often dreamlike coloration, with less attention to proportions. In the 16th century, the Mannerists Beccafumi and Il Sodoma worked there. While Baldassare Peruzzi was born and trained in Siena, his major works and style reflect his long career in Rome. The economic and political decline of Siena by the 16th century, and its eventual subjugation by Florence, largely checked the development of Sienese painting, although it also meant that many Sienese works in churches and public buildings were not discarded or destroyed by new paintings or rebuilding. Siena remains a remarkably well-preserved Italian late-Medieval town.
The Lucchese School, also known as the School of Lucca and as the Pisan-Lucchese School, was a school of painting and sculpture that flourished in the 11th and 12th centuries in the western and southern part of the region, with an important centre in Volterra. The art is mostly anonymous. Although not as elegant or delicate as the Florentine School, Lucchese works are remarkable for their monumentality.
Main artistic centres[edit]
In the province of Arezzo:
Arezzo
Castiglion Fiorentino
Cortona
Lucignano
Poppi
Sansepolcro
In the province of Florence:
Florence
Fiesole
Certaldo
In the Province of Grosseto:
Grosseto
Massa Marittima
Orbetello
Pitigliano
Roselle
Sorano
Sovana
In the province of Livorno:
Campiglia Marittima
Livorno
Bibbona
Bolgheri
Piombino
San Vincenzo
Populonia
Suvereto
In the province of Lucca:
Barga
Castelnuovo di Garfagnana
Castiglione di Garfagnana
Lucca
Pietrasanta
Villa Basilica
In the province of Massa and Carrara:
Massa
Carrara
Pontremoli
Fivizzano
Fosdinovo
In the province of Pisa:
Pisa
San Miniato
Volterra
Vicopisano
In the province of Pistoia:
Pescia
Pistoia
In the province of Prato:
Carmignano
Poggio a Caiano
Prato
In the province of Siena:
Colle di Val d'Elsa
Montalcino
Montepulciano
Monteriggioni
Pienza
San Gimignano
Siena
Arezzo
Montefioralle
Fiesole
Florence
Pisa
Siena
San Gimignano
Lucca
Pienza
Cortona
Language[edit]
Main article: Tuscan dialect
Apart from Tuscan being the standard model for Italy's national language (historically preferred over other languages of the peninsula), the Tuscan dialect (dialetto toscano) is spoken in Tuscany. The Italian language is actually literary Tuscan itself, specifically the Florentine dialect, only commonly referred to as Italian for political and nationalist reasons. It became the language of culture for all the people of Italy, thanks to the prestige of the masterpieces of Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Francesco Guicciardini. It would later become the official language of all the Italian states and of the Kingdom of Italy, when it was formed. Many Tuscan terms are also common in the Central Italian dialects of Umbria and some parts of Emilia Romagna.
Music[edit]
Main article: Music of Tuscany
See also: Music of Florence
Giacomo Puccini
Tuscany has a rich ancient and modern musical tradition, and has produced numerous composers and musicians, including Giacomo Puccini and Pietro Mascagni. Florence is the main musical centre of Tuscany. The city was at the heart of much of the Western musical tradition. It was there that the Florentine Camerata convened in the mid-16th century and experimented with setting tales of Greek mythology to music and staging, resulting in the first operas, fostering the further development of the operatic form, and the later developments of separate "classical" forms such as the symphony.
There are numerous musical centres in Tuscany. Arezzo is indelibly connected with the name of Guido d'Arezzo, the 11th-century monk who invented modern musical notation and the do-re-mi system of naming notes of the scale; Lucca hosted possibly the greatest Italian composer of Verismo, Giacomo Puccini together with Alfredo Catalani, while Pietro Mascagni was born in Livorno; and Siena is well known for the Accademia Musicale Chigiana, an organization that currently sponsors major musical activities such as the Siena Music Week and the Alfredo Casella International Composition Competition. Other important musical centres in Tuscany include Pisa and Grosseto.[citation needed]
Literature[edit]
Tuscan poet and literary figure Petrarch
Several famous writers and poets are from Tuscany, most notably Florentine author Dante Alighieri. Tuscany's literary scene particularly thrived in the 13th century and the Renaissance.
In Tuscany, especially in the Middle Ages, popular love poetry existed. A school of imitators of the Sicilians was led by Dante da Maiano, but its literary originality took another line – that of humorous and satirical poetry. The democratic form of government created a style of poetry that stood against the medieval mystic and chivalrous style.[citation needed]
Another type of poetry also began in Tuscany. Guittone d'Arezzo made art abandon chivalry and Provençal forms for national motives and Latin forms. He attempted political poetry, and although his work is often obscure, he prepared the way for the Bolognese school. Bologna was the city of science, and philosophical poetry appeared there. Guido Guinizelli was the poet after the new fashion of the art. In his work, the ideas of chivalry are changed and enlarged. Only those whose heart is pure can be blessed with true love, regardless of class. He refuted the traditional credo of courtly love, for which love is a subtle philosophy only a few chosen knights and princesses could grasp. Love is blind to blasons but not to a good heart when it finds one: when it succeeds it is the result of the spiritual, not physical affinity between two souls. Guinizzelli's democratic view can be better understood in the light of the greater equality and freedom enjoyed by the city-states of the center-north and the rise of a middle class eager to legitimise itself in the eyes of the old nobility, still regarded with respect and admiration but dispossessed of its political power.[citation needed]
Guinizelli's Canzoni make up the bible of Dolce Stil Novo, and one in particular, "Al cor gentil" ("To a Kind Heart") is considered[by whom?] the manifesto of the new movement which would bloom in Florence under Cavalcanti, Dante and their followers. His poetry has some of the faults of the school of d'Arezzo. Nevertheless, he marks a great development in the history of Italian art, especially because of his close connection with Dante's lyric poetry.[citation needed]
In the 13th century, there were several major allegorical poems. One of these is by Brunetto Latini, who was a close friend of Dante. His Tesoretto is a short poem, in seven-syllable verses, rhyming in couplets, in which the author professes to be lost in a wilderness and to meet with a lady, who represents Nature, from whom he receives much instruction. We see here the vision, the allegory, the instruction with a moral object, three elements which we shall find again in the Divine Comedy. Francesco da Barberino, a learned lawyer who was secretary to bishops, a judge, and a notary, wrote two little allegorical poems, the Documenti d'amore and Del reggimento e dei costumi delle donne. The poems today are generally studied not as literature, but for historical context. A fourth allegorical work was the Intelligenza, which is sometimes attributed to Compagni but is probably only a translation of French poems.
In the 15th century, humanist and publisher Aldus Manutius published the Tuscan poets Petrarch and Dante Alighieri (Divine Comedy), creating the model for what became a standard for modern Italian.
Cuisine[edit]
Main article: Tuscan food
See also: Tuscan wine
An assortment of Tuscan foods: various wine and cheese, and different sorts of salamis and hams
Simplicity is central to Tuscan cuisine. Legumes, bread, cheese, vegetables, mushrooms, and fresh fruit are used. Olive oil is made from Moraiolo, Leccino and Frantoiano olives. White truffles from San Miniato appear in October and November. Beef of the highest quality comes from the Chiana Valley, specifically, a breed known as Chianina used for Florentine steak. The indigenous Cinta Senese breed of pork is also produced.
Wine is a famous and common produce of Tuscany. The red wine Chianti is perhaps the most well-known internationally. Due to the many British tourists who come to the area where Chianti wine is produced this specific area has been nicknamed "Chiantishire".
Postage stamps[edit]
Main article: Postage stamps and postal history of Tuscany
Between 1851 and 1860, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, an independent Italian state until 1859 when it joined the United Provinces of Central Italy, produced two postage stamp issues which are among the most prized classic stamp issues of the world, and include the most valuable Italian stamp. The Grand Duchy of Tuscany was an independent Italian state from 1569 to 1859 but was occupied by France from 1808 to 1814. The Duchy comprised most of the present area of Tuscany, and its capital was Florence. In December 1859, the Grand Duchy officially ceased to exist, being joined to the duchies of Modena and Parma to form the United Provinces of Central Italy, which was annexed by the Kingdom of Sardinia a few months later in March 1860. In 1862 it became part of Italy and joined the Italian postal system.
