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 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 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, 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 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 File:Arezzo - Piazza Grande.jpg|
Arezzo File:MontefioralleDec102023 02.jpg|
Montefioralle File:FiesoleDec102023 15.jpg|
Fiesole File:FirenzeDec092023 01.jpg|
Florence File:Cathedral and Campanary - Pisa 2014 (2).JPG|
Pisa File:Palazzo Publico and Torre del Mangia from Facciatone - Siena 2016.jpg|
Siena File:San-Gimignano-South-2012.JPG|
San Gimignano File:2015 lucca 007.jpg|
Lucca File:Pienza italy.jpg|
Pienza File:Cortona-vista01.jpg|
Cortona Language 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 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.
Literature 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 strongly against the medieval mystic and chivalrous style. Devout invocation of God or a lady came from the
cloister and the castle; in the streets of the cities everything that had gone before was treated with ridicule or biting
sarcasm.
Folgóre da San Gimignano laughs when in his sonnets he tells a party of Sienese youths the occupations of every month in the year, or when he teaches a party of Florentine lads the pleasures of every day in the week. Cenne della Chitarra laughs when he parodies Folgore's sonnets. The sonnets of Rustico di Filippo are half-fun and half-satire, as is the work of
Cecco Angiolieri of Siena, the oldest humorist we know, a far-off precursor of
François Rabelais and
Michel de Montaigne. 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. Guinizelli's
Canzoni make up the bible of
Dolce Stil Novo, and one in particular, "Al cor gentil" ("To a Kind Heart") is considered 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. 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 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 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. == Economy ==