Tuscany [antikvár]

Preface by Sonja Bullaty Angelo Lomeo e have spent a good part of a year in Tuscany, spread over a span of 30 years. What we at first encountered in art is magically there, in reality— the trees and vineyards in a painting come to life on a Tuscan hillside. The name means so much more than the region. It evokes the Renaissance, a place in time between the middle ages and modern times. The word Tuscany holds the secret to so many other names: Florence, Siena, Pisa; Botticelli, Giotto, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Signorelli; Dante; the Medici; the Etruscans; early music; Chianti wines, and a way with food. The strange thing is that so much of what we envisioned is still there, and the profusion is overwhelming—the art, the architecture, the landscape, the landscape in art and art in the landscape. Some of these landscapes go beyond the geographical confines of Tuscany, from the foothills of the Apennines in the Piedmont region, along the Ligurian sea, through the hilltowns of Tuscany and Umbria. They speak of a long tradition of love of the land. A first visit to Tuscany can be daunting, even intimidating. There is so much to see, to experience, and to learn. There is too much of everything to absorb, including a multitude of museums, churches, duomos, towers, even labels of Chianti. But after a while the mind and the senses accept that no matter how many lifetimes are spent there, one cannot see it all. So we started to relax and enjoy and to look forward to new riches every day. Like a kaleidoscope the landscape changes around each bend of the road. Each town has a distinct history and architecture, each village a different atmosphere and a different sensibility. Trying to do this justice in photographs is perhaps as exciting and challenging today as the study of chiaroscuro was to the artists of their day, who explored the play of light and shadow long before photography was born. Since we first visited, some things have changed—people dress differently; cars intrude but make it possible to see more; Florence is overrun with tourists (but probably always was). There are crowds to see David by Michelangelo and to enter the Uffizi, but in the