Toscana

Roughly triangular in shape.

The Tyrrhenian Sea is located on Tuscany’s western coastline:• Contains the Tuscan Archpelago• Largest island of the archipelago is Elba*

Shares borders with the regions: Liguria (Northwest) Emilia-Romagna (North and east) Umbria (East) Lazio (Southeast)

Surrounded by major mountain chains (The Appenines)

Dominated by hilly countryside:• Hills make up nearly two-third’s of the region’s total

area.• Mostly used for agriculture.

Rich and fertile plains occupy the remaining areas found mostly around the valley of the river Arno*

Many of Tuscany’s largest are found on the banks of river Arno:• Florence• Empoli• Pisa

Tuscan Hills near Lucca

Someone hiking the Tuscan-Emilian Appenines (Appenino Tosco-Emiliano)

River Arno (in Florence)

Listed from North to South:• Massa and Carrara• Lucca• Pistoia• Prato• Florence• Pisa• Arezzo• Livorno• Siena• Grosseto

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany.

Florence is famous for its history. It was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities during the time. Florence is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance.

Florence is also an important city in Italian fashion, being ranked within the top fifty fashion capitals of the world; it is also a major national economic centre, being a tourist and industrial hub.

Palazzo Vecchio (Old Palace)

Serves as the town hall of Florence, Italy. This massive, Romanesque, crenellated fortress-palace is among the most impressive town halls found in Tuscany.

Piazza della Repubblica

Piazza della Repubblica

Is a city square in Florence which is first, built on top the forum, the centre of an ancient Roman city, and then of the city’s old ghetto which was swept away during the Renaissance.

Colonna della Dovizia or Colonna dell'Abbondanza (Column of Abundance) is the sculpture found at the square.

Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (Florence Church)

Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (Florence Church)

The Duomo, as it is ordinarily called, was begun in 1296 in the Gothic style to the design of Arnolfo di Cambio and completed structurally in 1436 with the dome engineered by Filippo Brunelleschi.

The cathedral complex, located in Piazza del Duomoo, includes the Baptistery and Giotto's Campanile. The three buildings are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site covering the historic centre of Florence and are a major attraction to tourists visiting the region of Tuscany.

Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge)

Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge)

The Ponte Vecchio is a Medieval stone closed-spandrel segmental arch bridge over the Arno River, in Florence, noted for still having shops built along it, as was once common.

The Ponte Vecchio's two neighboring bridges are the Ponte Santa Trinita and the Ponte alle Grazie.

Palazzo Pitti

Palazzo Pitti

It is situated on the south side of the River Arno, a short distance from the Ponte Vecchio. The core of the present palazzo dates from 1458 and was originally the town residence of Luca Pitti, an ambitious Florentine banker.

The palace was bought by the Medici family in 1549 and became the chief residence of the ruling families of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. It grew as a great treasure house as later generations amassed paintings, plates, jewelry and luxurious possessions.

In the late 18th century, the palazzo was used as a power base by Napoleon, and later served for a brief period as the principal royal palace of the newly united Italy.

Leonardo da Vinci

Works:• The Last Supper• Mona Lisa• Virgin of the Rocks

Studies & Manuscripts:• Human Anatomy• Engineering• Plans for flying machines

Michelangelo

Works:• Madonna and Child• David• Sistine Chapel ceiling• Numerous sculptures• Designed the Medici Chapel

and the dome of St. Peter’sBasilica

Dante Alighieri

Works:• Divine Comedy:

Inferno Purgatorio Paradiso*each consists of 33 cantos

• Known as il Sommo Poeta

• Father of Italian language

• He, Petrarch and Boccaccio are also known as "the three fountains" or "the three crowns".

Niccolo Machiavelli

Influential political theorist

He was a founder of politicalscience and ethics

Works:• Il Principe• Discourses on Livy• Poet and Dramatist

Benigni is probably best known outside of Italy for his movie Life is Beautiful (La vita è bella) filmed in Arezzo.

The film is about an Italian Jewish man who tries to protect his son’s innocence during the Holocaust.

La vita è bella is based on his father’s experiences who spent three years in a concentration camp in Bergen-Belsen.

It is named after the main towns in its territory: Carrara and Massa, its capital.

The province provides the production of the famous white Carrara marble.

Carrara is a city notable for its white or blue-gray marble found in its quarries.

Carrara marble has been used since Ancient Rome and during the Renaissance:• Pantheon• Trajan’s Column• Renaissance sculptures

Carrara marble is exported around the world but is also fashioned and sculpted commercially in the city.

Carrara Cathedral (Duomo, 12th Century)

Nearly all the exterior of the Cathedral is covered by local Carrara marble.

The portal is crowned by sculptures inspired to medieval bestiaries, and surmounted by a Gothic rose window with twisted columns, each different from the others.

Palazzo Cybo-Malaspina (Ducal Palace)

The Ducal Palace ss now the seat of the Fine Arts Academy. It is built over a pre-existing Lombard fortification, it dates to the reign of Guglielmo Malaspina in 1448.

Massa is the administrative centre of the province of Massa and Carrara.

The Massa area is of high touristic value and together with the twin town of Carrara, Massa is known for the production and extraction of marble.

Marina di Massa

Marina di Massa, a typical seaside resort, is one of the tourist spots of the Tuscan Riviera offering a vast choice of accommodations and sports facilities, besides the numerous bathing establishments present.

Piazza Mercurio

Also known as the Orto Botanico di Pian della Fioba, it is a nature preserve and botanical garden located at 900 meters altitude in Pian della Fioba, Massa.It is operated by the town in collaboration with the Università della Toscana.

The garden was established in 1966 for the study of plants indigenous to the Apuane Alps and dedicated to botanist Pietro Pellegrini (1867–1957).

Gianluigi Buffon• born in Carrara, Italy

• is a FIFA World Cup-winning Italian goalkeeper who is currently the Captain for both Serie A club Juventus and the Italian National Team.

• He is widely considered by experts to be one of the most dominant and successful goalkeepers in history.

Found on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa.

Pisa is known worldwide for its leaning tower (the bell tower of the city's cathedral)

Knight’s Square (Piazza dei Cavalieri)

It is one of the most important landmarks in Pisa, Italy, and second main square of the city. This square was the political centre in medieval Pisa.

After the middle of the 16th century, the square became the headquarters of the Order of the Knights of St. Stephen.

It is now a centre of education, being the main house of the Scuola Normale di pisa, a higher learning institution part of the university

The University of Pisa is a public research university located in Pisa, Italy. Established in 1343 by an edict of Pope Clement VI, Pisa is the 19th oldest extant university in the world and one of the oldest universities in the country.

It houses Europe’s oldest academic botanical garden (Orto botanica di Pisa), which was founded in 1544.

The University of Pisa is part of the Pisa University System, which includes the Scuola Normale Superiore and the Sant’Anna Schol of Advanced Studies.

Also known as the Orto Botanico dell’Universita di Pisa, is a botanical garden operated by the University of Pisa, and located at via Luca Ghini 5, Pisa, Italy. It is open weekday mornings without charge.

The garden was established in 1544 under Cosimo I de’Medici as the first university botanical garden in Europe, and entrusted to the famous botanist Luca Ghini of Imola.

It is a small Gothic church in Pisa. The church, erected in 1230, was originally known as Santa Maria di Pontenovo: the new name of Spina (“thorn”) derives from the presence of a thorn allegedly part of the crown dressed by Christ on the Cross, brought to this church in 1333.

The Leaning Tower is a freestanding bell tower situated at the Piazza del Duomo (“Cathedral Square”) in the city of Pisa, Italy, and is the third oldest structure in Pisa’s Cathedral Square.

Construction for the bell tower began over 800 years ago, in 1173. Architects failed to realize that the soil was unstable, and that a mere three-meter foundation to support the tower would not be enough. After the first three stories were constructed, the ground  began to sink, and the tower began to lean

At that point in time, construction halted for almost a century, because the Republic of Pisa was at war with the other existing republics. This allowed the unstable soil to settle.

Each year the tower leans further – a millimeter each year. In 1990, the tower leaned 14 feet and a half out of line. Engineers worked to stabilize the foundation of the tower, and were successful in straightening the tower slightly (without taking away the uniqueness of the landmark) to prevent the tower from leaning further and toppling over.

Leonardo Pisano Bigollo (Fibonacci)

Also known as:• Leonardo of Pisa• Leonardo Pisano• Leonardo Bonacci• Leornardo Fibonacci• Or simply:

Fibonacci

Is an Italian mathematician and considered by some “the most talented western mathematician of the Middle Ages”.

Fibonacci is best known to the modern world for spreading the Hindu-Arabic numeral system in Europe, primarily through the publication in 1202 of his Liber Abaci (book of calculation).

He is named after a sequence of numbers called the Fibonacci numbers.

Born on Sept. 22, 1958

Italian tenor

Multi-instrumentalist

Classical Crossover Artist

Born with poor eyesight, he became blind at the age of twelve following a football accident.

In 1998, he was named one of People’s Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People.

In 1999, his nomination for Best New Artist at the Grammy Awards marked the first, and so far only time a classical artist had been nominated in the category.

The Prayer, his duet with Celine Dion for the animated film The Quest for Camelot, won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song and was nominated for an Academy Award in the same category.

“Crostini”

Typically, the Florentine people never start a meal from the main course but always have a starter first.

Whether eating in a restaurant or at home with friends you will always find the liver "crostini" (thin sliced toasted bread with liver patè) on the table.

It is a sauce made with chicken livers, butter, capers, anchovies, onion and broth, which is spread on warm bread.

Similar to spaghetti, it is a thicker pasta made with egg. It is mixed with boar sauce (a wild animal that is still in the woods of Tuscany) or hare.

It can be seasoned with other classic ingredients: porcini mushrooms, meat sauces, artichokes, sausages, etc.

The thing that most surprises people that do not live in Florence, is that the steak is undone meat, nearly raw. A Florentine steak may also be eaten slightly cooked. It is accompanied by white beans, roasted potatoes or a tender salad.

In addition to steak, Florence offers other meat specialties such as tripe and lampredotto. Foods that are eaten in kiosks on the street, even in winter.

They can be seasoned with green sauce and enriched with other vegetables (leeks for example). They are made from parts of the cow’s stomach

This is one of the most traditional antipasti served in Florentine restaurants. The meats are arranged in a circle on a serving dish and decorated with crisp, tangy salad leaves. Often served with the thick slices of bread in a basket.

Is made with layers of fresh pasta, meat sauce, and béchamel with cheese with a sprinkling of Parmigiano on top, heated through in the oven (it should be lightly browned) and served with more grated Parmigiano on the side. The ingredients include fresh vegetables, wine, ham and beef.

A concoction of chicken breasts with bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, spinach, onion, celery, cream cheese, paprika and garlic powder.

There are 6 wines with appellation D.O.C.G., Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (Designation of Origin Controlled and Guaranteed):

Chianti

Chianti Classico

Brunello di Montalcino

Vino Nobile di Montepulciano

Carmignano

Vernaccia di San Gimignano

It is one of the most known Italian wine. It is produced in various parts of Tuscany, provinces of Arezzo, Firenze, Pisa, Pistoia, Prato and Siena. It is made from Sangiovese grapes (75-100%)

It is produced in a zone of most ancient origin, in the province of Siena, inside the full territory of the communes of Castellina, Gaiole and Radda in Chianti and parts of the communes of Castelnuovo Berardenga and Poggibonsi.

Montalcino, in the province of Siena, is situated at an altitude of 500 meters above sea level. Around 1870 a wine maker, Ferruccio Biondi Santi, started to plant in its vineyard a clone of Sangiovese (grosso), called Brunello.

Brunello di Montalcino is Tuscany's most famous wine. Produced from 100 percent Sangiovese grapes (Brunello is the local name for this Sangiovese.

It is a wine with ancient origins (1300). It is called "Nobile" because in the old days it was mostly produced by noble families. It is made from Sangiovese grapes, locally called Prugnolo gentile, (minimum 70%).

It is produced in a small area, Carmignano and Poggio a Caiano, in the province of Prato. This wine is done with Sangiovese (minimum 50%)

Carmignano was identified by Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany as one of the superior wine producing areas of Tuscany and granted special legal protections in 1716.

It was the first wine to get the appellation D.O.C., and today it is the only white wine in Tuscany to be D.O.C.G. Its fame is very ancient and goes back to the end of 1200. It is produced inside the territory of the commune of San Gimignano (Siena) with grapes of the same name (Vernaccia) and with the eventual addition (maximum 10%) of other white grapes.

Tuscany in Popular Culture

*This scene is taken at a countryside in Val d'Orcia, Siena, Tuscany.

The whole second act of Hannibal takes place in Florence. Ridley Scott had never filmed there before, but described it as "quite an experience...It was kind of organized chaos... We were there at the height of tourist season."

Within Florence, the production would visit various locations such as the Palazzo Capponi (as Dr. Fell's workplace), the Ponte Vecchio, the Palazzo Vecchio, the Pharmacy of Santa Maria Novella and the Cathedral.

*This scene is taken near the Ponte Vecchio

*The film’s setting is in Arezzo, Toscana

After scouting more than twelve possible locations to film scenes that would take place in Volterra, Italy, the scouting team selected the town of Montepulciano, which they believe was the best representation of Meyer's description in the book.

(Information and Pictures taken from):

www.4tuscany.net www.trekearth.com www.en.wikipedia.org www.freeworldmaps.net www.aboutflorence.com www.firenzealbergo.it www.didyouwonder.com www.wine-toscana.com www.tuscanyintour.com