Rough Guides - The Rough Guide to Tuscany & Umbria (Travel Guide eBook)

Contents

Introduction to Tuscany & Umbria

Tuscany and Umbria harbour the classic landscapes of Italy, familiar from a thousand Renaissance paintings, with their backdrop of medieval hill-towns, rows of cypresses, vineyards and olive groves, and artfully sited villas and farmhouses. Its a stereotype that has long held an irresistible attraction for northern Europeans. Shelley referred to Tuscany as a paradise of exiles, and ever since his time the English, in particular, have seen the region as an ideal refuge from a sun-starved and overcrowded homeland.

The outsiders perspective may be distorted, but the central provinces especially in Tuscany are indeed the essence of Italy in many ways. The national language evolved from Tuscan dialect, a supremacy ensured by Dante, who wrote the Divine Comedy in the vernacular of his birthplace, Florence. Other great Tuscan writers of the period Petrarch and Boccaccio reinforced its status, and in the nineteenth century Manzoni came here to purge his vocabulary of any impurities while working on The Betrothed , the most famous of all Italian novels. But what makes this area pivotal to the culture not just of Italy but of all Europe is, of course, the Renaissance , that extraordinarily creative era that takes its name from another Tuscan, Giorgio Vasari, who wrote in the sixteenth century of the rebirth of the arts with the humanism of Giotto and his successors.

Nowadays Tuscany and Umbria are among the wealthiest regions of the modern Italian state, a prosperity founded partly on agriculture and tourism , but largely on their industrial centres, which are especially conspicuous in the Arno valley. Nonetheless, both Tuscany and Umbria are predominantly rural , with great tracts of land still looking much as they did half a millennium ago. Just as the hill-towns mould themselves to the summits, the terraces of vines follow the lower contours of the hills and open fields spread across the broader valleys , forming a distinctive balance between the natural and human world.

Where to go

Florence was the most active centre of the Renaissance: almost every eminent artistic figure from Giotto onwards is represented here in an unrivalled gathering of churches, galleries and museums . But although Florence tends to take the limelight today, the longstanding rivalries between the towns of Tuscany and Umbria ensured that pictures and palaces were sponsored by everyone who could afford them. Exquisite Renaissance works adorn almost every place of any size, from the coast to the Apennine slopes of eastern Umbria, while many towns can boast artistic projects every bit as ambitious as those to be seen in Florence the stunning fresco cycles in Arezzo (by Piero della Francesca), Orvieto (Luca Signorelli), Siena (Pinturicchio), San Gimignano (Benozzo Gozzoli), Montefalco (Gozzoli again), Assisi (Giotto and others), Perugia (Perugino) and Prato (Fra Filippo Lippi) are just a selection of the regions riches.

And of course the art of the Renaissance did not spring out of thin air: both Tuscany and Umbria can boast a cultural lineage that stretches back to the time of Charlemagne and beyond. Lucca has some of the most handsome Romanesque buildings in Europe, and Pisa is another city whose heyday came in the Middle Ages its Campo dei Miracoli, with the Leaning Tower, is one of Europes most brilliant monumental ensembles. Siena s red-brick medieval cityscape makes a refreshing contrast with the darker tones of Florence, while a tour through Umbria can seem like a procession of magnificent ancient hill-towns. The attractions of Assisi (birthplace of St Francis), Spoleto and the busy provincial capital of Perugia are well known, but other Umbrian towns such as Gubbio , Bevagna and Todi retain plentiful evidence of their ancient past, too.

Aerial view of Siena

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The variety of landscapes within this comparatively small area is astounding. A short distance from central Florence spread the thickly wooded uplands of Mugello and the Casentino , while Lucca is a springboard for the Alpi Apuane , whose mountain quarries have supplied Europes masons with white marble for centuries. Along the Tuscan shoreline, the resorts are interspersed by some of Italys best-kept wildlife reserves, including the fabulous Monti dellUccellina , the last stretch of virgin coast in the whole country. Out in the Tuscan archipelago , the island of Giglio is relatively unspoilt by the sort of tourist development that has infiltrated though certainly not ruined nearby Elba .

Landlocked Umbria may not be as varied as its neighbour, but the wild heights of the Valnerina , the Piano Grande s prairie-like expanse and the savage peaks of the Monti Sibillini all contrast with the tranquil, soft-contoured hills with which the region is most often associated.

Fact file

Tuscany

• Tuscany (Toscana) has a population of around 3.8 million, with some 385,000 in Florence, its capital.
• The region is bordered by the sea to the west, and by the Apennine mountains to the east; in the north lie the Alpi Apuane (where Monte Prado reaches 2054m), while in the south rises Monte Amiata. South of Livorno lies the coastal plain of the Maremma. Tuscany has more woodland than any other Italian region.
• Tourism is a major contributor to the regions economy , as are agriculture (especially beef, wine and olive oil) and textile production, which is concentrated in the Arno valley and Prato.

Umbria

• Umbria is the only landlocked region of the Italian peninsula. Of its 900,000 population , 170,000 live in Perugia, the capital.
• The terrain is gentler than Tuscany, but the Apennines run along the eastern border where, in the Sibillini mountains, Monte Vettore reaches 2476m just over the border in Marche. Some thirty percent of Umbria is woodland.
• Perugia manufactures food and clothing, and factories dot the Vale of Spoleto, but the major industries (steel, chemicals, textiles, paper and food) are in the south, around Terni. Traditional crafts are also significant, especially pottery.

When to go

Midsummer in central Italy is not as pleasant an experience as you might imagine: the heat can be stifling, and from May to September the big tourist hotspots of Florence, Siena and San Gimignano are too crowded to be really enjoyable. If at all possible, avoid August , when the majority of Italians take their holidays: many restaurants and hotels close, and the beaches are jammed solid. Its best to visit shortly before Easter or in the late autumn the towns are quieter then, and the countryside is blossoming or taking on the tones of the harvest season. The Umbrian climate varies slightly from Tuscanys, chiefly because of its distance from the sea; temperatures in summer are fractionally higher here, while the hill-top towns can be surprisingly windy and cool at other times. Winter is often quite rainy, but the absence of crowds makes this a good option for the cities on the major art trails. Bear in mind, however, that high-altitude roads are impassable in midwinter, and in places such as the Sibillini the snow might not melt until as late as April.