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Villas in Lucca

A few minutes from Pinocchio Park in Collodi, immersed in the countryside of Lucchesia, you will find the magnificent Nobility Villas that were the summer residences of the Nobles and also representative places.

Proceeding from Collodi towards Lucca, the first you will encounter is Villa Torrigiani, a luminous example of Baroque architecture, and it’s possible to visit the inside which is finely furnished and has an ample park.

Then you come across Villa Mansi which was the residence of a very important family of Lucca, ascent to the honours in the field of silk commerce. The building, built in 1500, was reconstructed the following century then the Mansi entrusted the architect Filippo Juvarra to transform the garden which was divided as seen today, into four side by side sections.

Villa Oliva and Villa Grabau are both found in San Pancrazio. Villa Oliva, was constructed by the Buonvisi family in 1500, in the course of the centuries it has changed owners many times, and once a Consistory to the presence of Pope Alessandro VII, stayed there. Today the residence has been restored and about 5 hectares of park that surround it, is characterised by the presence of really appreciable rare essences, waterfalls and fountains.

Not far away is Villa Grabau, again from 1500, born on a ravine of an ancient medieval village, thanks to the work of the Diodat family. After many transformations, the actual aspect can be attributed to a German banker married to Carolina Grabau. Immersed is a spectacular Park, characterised by an English garden, an Italian garden and the lovely Teatro di Verzura, where today summer performances take place.

The Villa Reale di Marlia was once residence in 1805 to the sister of Bonaparte. In the following centuries to the Grand Duke of Tuscany and then the King of Italy, Vittorio Emanuele II, who gave it to Prince Carlo. Fallen from grace for many contracted debts from the nephew of Carlo, in 1918 started the indiscriminating sale of furniture, furnishings and the Villa. So the family of Conti Pecci-Blunt entered on the scene, who bought the property saving the park from disaster, restructuring and conserving it with passion and even today maintaining the splendour intact like the example of the Viale delle Camelie or the marvellous Teatro di Verdura.

You will find Villa Bernardini in Vicopelago. The construction was finished in 1615, and since then has conserved unchanged and enriched the furnishings and park of the ancient property.

Leslie Halloran
Please check out my website at: www.lihdesigns.net

“A frog in the well does not know the sea.” – Japanese Proverb

Truffles

The Tuscany truffle area around San Miniato in Pisa province

Every autumn hundreds of truffle lovers congregate in the ancient main squares of the towns to sample, judge and evaluate the many varieties of this so desired and costly fungus or tuber about which the great Brillant Savarin once said that it could ‘make a woman more tender and a man more loveable’.

In San Miniato in Pisa province, in woods on low hills armies of expert hunters, aided by their faithful pig or pup, literally dig up first-class specimens of both the white and black varieties. In those autumn days of gourmet festivals the truffle is king of the kitchen and its unforgettable aromas never cease to amaze and spell-bind.

What is the truffle ?

Truffles grow only on or near the roots of trees, mainly limes, poplars and weeping willows and especially oaks, at depths up to thirty centimetres (twelve inches). They are hunted with the aid of keen-nosed pigs or talented dogs, but since porcine predilections for the precious lumps are even more enthusiastic than mankind’s, determined digging sprees for the prize are usually won by the pig. It is therefore prudent to train up a dog, by nature indifferent to truffle charms. Commercial cultivation is impracticable – rare and special soils are needed in addition to the right tree roots, and the creation of fecund conditions requires much costly, expert and laborious care for eight or ten years before, if ever, any useful specimens appear (often none ever do).

Truffles are so rare in North American that few people have ever heard of them, let alone hunted any. Apparently truffles live in symbiosis with the tree, absorbing water and mineral salts from the soil through the tree roots. Colour, texture, aroma and flavour seem to be determined by the symbiosis. Oak-borne truffles have a more penetrating, pungent aroma compared with those growing near lime trees, whose perfume is powerful but gentler, sweeter. It should be remembered that truffles have very little flavour by themselves – their preciousness derives from their unique ability to impart a wonderfully delicious, almost magical flavour to accompanying or ancillary foods on which they are placed or with which they are mixed.

The use

The very best sorts should be cut into paper-thin slices for covering the food they are to garnish – meats, pastasciutta, vegetables. Lesser qualities are excellent for cutting into little pieces and browning them in oil with a little garlic and thyme, this condiment to be applied quickly and directly to the main dish on the plate or they may be ground into sauces for innumerable uses.

Web-site: www.comune.san-miniato.pi.it

Italian wine selection

Fubbiano wines - Italian wine selection

Winemaking at Fubbiano
Fubbiano’s 20 hectares of vineyard produce around 100,00 bottles a year, making it one of the largest producers in the Lucchesia.
This will increase to probably around 150,000 bottles over the next few years as newly replanted vineyards begin to reach maturity.
The first wine was bottled at Fubbiano in 1968, the same year that the DOC Colline Lucchesi was introduced.

Labels have come and gone in the meantime, such as the Novello Fubbianello that is no longer produced, but the classics have been a constant since then.
The majority of the grapes produced at Fubbiano are red, divided among four different labels: the Fubbaino red DOC, the San Gennaro DOC reserve, the “Super Tuscan” I Pampini, and the newest label in the family, First Love.

Two white wines complete the family the Fubbiano Bianco DOC and a pure Vermentino as well as two dessert wines a Vin Santo and in 2010 for the first time an Aleatico, both produced in small quantities. An Aqua Vitae as also produced in minimal quanties, a fragrant pure grape spirit derive from the fermentation of grapes rather than grape skins or pomace as is the case with grappa.

Web site: www.fattoriadifubbiano.it

Tuscan tours

Tuscan tours - San Piero in Campo Church

The Romanesque parish church of San piero in Campo
The parish church is an important example of Romanesque architecture as it one of the best preserved and it has not been modified either inside or out.

Information about the baptismal church starts from 846, but its current layout is the result of complete reconstruction between the end of the 12th and the beginning of the 13th century. Of the original structure there remains only fragments (for example, the two white limestone caaapitals in the blind loggia of the facade).

The building has a nave and two aisles divided by nine monolithic columns in stone, a pilaster faced with wood and brick with five trusses over the nave (restored in 1907); the aisles have a pitched ceiling and there is one apse. References to the compositions and decorations that charcterise its aarchitecture are found in the church of Sant’Alessandro and in San Michele in Foro in Lucca.

Florence Church

florence-s.croce — Florence - S. Croce Church

The Basilica di Santa Croce (Basilica of the Holy Cross) is the principal Franciscan church inFlorence, Italy, and a minor basilica of the Roman Catholic Church. It is situated on the Piazza di Santa Croce, about 800 metres south east of the Duomo. The site, when first chosen, was in marshland outside the city walls. It is the burial place of some of the most illustrious Italians, such asMichelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Foscolo, Gentile and Rossini, thus it is known also as theTemple of the Italian Glories (Tempio dell’Itale Glorie).

The Basilica is the largest Franciscan church in the world. Its most notable features are its sixteenchapels, many of them decorated with frescoes by Giotto and his pupils, and its tombs and cenotaphs. Legend says that Santa Croce was founded by St Francis himself. The construction of the current church, to replace an older building, was begun on 12 May 1294[1], possibly by Arnolfo di Cambio, and paid for by some of the city’s wealthiest families.

It was consecrated in 1442 by Pope Eugene IV. The building’s design reflects the austere approach of the Franciscans. The floorplan is an Egyptian or Tau cross (a symbol of St Francis), 115 metres in length with a nave and two aisles separated by lines of octagonal columns. To the south of the church was a convent, some of whose buildings remain.
In the Primo Chiostro, the main cloister, there is the Cappella dei Pazzi, built as the chapter house, completed in the 1470s. Filippo Brunelleschi (who had designed and executed the dome of the Duomo) was involved in its design which has remained rigorously simple and unadorned.

In 1560, the choir screen was removed as part of changes arising from the Counter-Reformation and the interior rebuilt by Giorgio Vasari. As a result, there was damage to the church’s decoration and most of the altars previously located on the screen were lost.
The campanile was built in 1842, replacing an earlier one damaged by lightning. The neo-Gothic marble façade, by Nicolò Matas, dates from 1857-1863.

A Jewish architect Niccolo Matas from Ancona, designed the church’s 19th century neo-Gothic facade, working a prominent Star of David into the composition. Matas had wanted to be buried with his peers but because he was Jewish, he was buried under the porch and not within the walls.
In 1866, the complex became public property, as a part of government suppression of most religious houses, following the wars that gained Italian independence and unit.
The Museo dell’Opera di Santa Croce is housed mainly in the refectory, also off the cloister. A monument to Florence Nightingalestands in the cloister, in the city in which she was born and after which she was named. Brunelleschi also built the inner cloister, completed in 1453.

In 1966, the Arno River flooded much of Florence, including Santa Croce. The water entered the church bringing mud, pollution and heating oil. The damage to buildings and art treasures was severe, taking several decades to repair.
Today the former dormitory of the Franciscan Friars houses the Scuola del Cuoio (Leather School)[1]. Visitors can watch as artisans craft purses, wallets, and other leather goods which are sold in the adjacent shop.

Web-site: www.firenzeturismo.it