Tuscany Charming | PlanningaTour.com

Secret Tuscany

Secret Tuscany: Artimino village
Resembling a perfect painting, Artimino is picturesque and beautiful. Nestling in the green hills of Tuscany, Artimino is quaint and medieval and has been known for its famous Medici ‘Villa La Ferdinanda’. Ranging over the wine producing area of the Vino di Carmignano, the wine of this region was declared s a noble wine by the Grand Duke Cosimo III de’Medici.

The Etruscans named the area as Artumeno in the 8th century BC. History has recorded Artimino in its annals as numerous Etruscan burial chambers were found in the areas of Comeano and Poggio a Caiano around Artimino. The Roman style is still found in the names of the villages and the farmhouses in this area. The Castle of Artimino was constructed in the Middle Ages during the 10th century. Due to the focal strategic point of Artimino there were constant tussles between Florence and Pistoia. In the middle of the 14th century, Artimino came under the rule of Florence.

Beautiful as a natural park, Artimino and the areas around it was bought by Cosimo I de’Medici. He named the area as ‘Barco’, and desired to create a game reserve there. The park stretched over the hilly regions of Artimino till the edges of Vinci and was called the ‘Parco Reale’. The Medici family considered it their hunting grounds and constructed a wall around the park to prevent the game from escaping. Hunting was considered an enjoyable sport as well as a lucrative form of entertainment due to the fact that the skin and meat of the game was valuable. The Grand Duke Ferdinand appreciated the beauty and value of Artimino and took charge of the cultivation areas and the houses of Artimino to create the royal ‘fattoria’ or the estate. The royal architect Bernado Buontalenti, was commissioned to build a beautiful palazzo that could house the entire court. What transpired was the gorgeous Villa La Ferdinanda in 1594. With incredible architecture, this amazing villa was structured at Poggio a Caiano. The lovely villa is just 15 minutes away by car from Prato, the capital of the province and also from Montelupo Fiorentino and Vinci. The awesome city of Florence is just 20 minutes away from the villa.

The village of Artimino is guarded by a huge tower that was used as a look-out by the “protezione civile” or the civil authorities for fires or if they were going to be attacked by enemies. With the harmony of linear form and lovely features, the Villa La Ferdinand possessed the fantastic architecture of a 100 chimneys built at various angles in different forms and shapes. This was incorporated as one of the villa’s incredible features due to the fact that Ferdinand who loved to hunt could keep his guests warm always. The Villa houses grand ballrooms, enormous suites, small chapels, wine cellars and the Etruscan Museum. Adorned by lovely frescoes by Pontormo, Andrea del Sarto and other famous artists, the Villa La Ferdinand has two adjacent buildings. One of the buildings called the ‘Corridoio’ or Corridor housed the grooms, valets, and servants, but has been converted into the Hotel Paggeria Medicea as seen today. The second building is the “Palazzo del Sig. Biagio Pignatta” is constructed in the same style as the first building. The Palazzo del Sig. Biagio Pignatta has been named after the valet of the Grand Duke Ferdinand I, who lived on the first floor. The ground floor was originally the riding stables of the noble family but has been transformed into the famous Restaurant Biagio Pignatta offering delicious international and traditional cuisines and the wines of Artimino.

The area of Artimino comprises of 732 hectares out of which 72 hectares face the South and are used as the wine growing area with the cultivation of Sangiovese, Canaiolo, Cabernet Sauvignon, Trebbiano, San Colombana, Mammolo, Occhio di Pernice varieties of grapes. About 400 meters away from the Villa La Ferdinand, the fattoria in the medieval village produces the famous Barco Reale and the Vin Santo wines. The olive groves evolve over 180 hectares with the fattoria producing the renowned cold pressed oil. Visitors can enjoy traditional snacks served at restaurants in the village of Artimino with its ancient stone buildings, quaint shops and Romanesque churches. Artimino offers the spirit of the medieval ages and the essence of natural beauty.

Web-site: www.incontridiartimino.it

Fashion yacth

Boat building area in Viareggio

The boat building sector: fashion yacht in Viareggio
The boat building sector of the Versilia coast is, thanks to its centuries-old tradition, synonymous with quality and cutting edge technology.
The ship-building industry, with its five centuries of history, is in fact a major player on the world stage.
Thanks to the geographical layout of the Tuscan coast, with its numerous islands and the proximity to Corsica, sailing for commerce and fishing has developed since ancient times with the consequent creation for first rowing and then sailing boats, and finally motor boats. Over time the quality and reliability of these boats has reached an extremely high level.

From the 1960’s to the 1980’s, with the introduction of new materials such as fibre glass, carbon fibre, steel and aluminium, we have witnessed a real revolution, not only in the market but also in the philosophy of pleasure boat construction.
Mass production has increased and the standardization of accessories has allowed the production of boats at a more reasonable price and a consequently wider distribution of pleasure craft.
the Viareggio boat-building industry has meanwhile also maintained a production that targets the more demanding niche markets, using more expensive materials.

Today the Versilia area can boast an economy of great importance which includes, apart from the boat-building production of the large yards, also small craftsman business, created as a consequence of the decentralization of production towards tertiary companies which specialise in specif fields (electronic instrumentation, motors, furnishing, etc.)
Viareggio’s fame as home to skilled boat-builders has spread beyond Italy. In fact, 18% of the world’s luxury boats are produced there, with the presence of world-wide producers Azimut-Benetti, Rodriguez Group, Fipa Group, San Lorenzo, Perini Navi, compared with the 45% built in Italy, with a total of 7 out of the 20 producers world wide.
Tradition and high quality have led the production to distinguish itself in terms of style, elegance and high level of technology in the command and navigation systems, making the boats of Tuscany unbeatable for reliability, safety and interior design and furnishings.

Tuscan towns

Quality of life in Lucca.
In the province of Lucca, as in the rest of Tuscany as a whole, people recognise, and have, a good quality of life both for those who invest and work in the teritory as well as those who simply whish to spend some time here in the name of culture, countryside, sea and as a means of visiting other important places in Tuscany.

The province of Lucca occupied 31st position in the national table for quality of life, taking into account indicators such as the way of life, work and business, services and the environment, the population and leisure time.
The families of Lucca have an average disposable income, taken as the sum of the active resources which each family sets aside for the acquisition of goods and servis and for saving, which puts them under the regional average (6th place among the provinces of Tuscany), even if close to the national average, which is strongly penalised by the income of the families from the South of Italy.

Compared with this the average assets of the families of Lucca i.e. the total of real assets (houses, land) and financial assets (financial and property investments), is in second place in the regional classification behind Siena. 63% of these assets are represented by property and 37% by investments and other financial assets.

The overview of the affluence of our province sees a quite low level of income but with quite high values of assets.
This aspect of the assets is probably explained by the historic propensity of lucca families to save manoey and to invest in property, while the income aspect is ascribable, at least in part, to the lack in the province of large employment structures with medium -high wages.

A Tight Spot

I came across the Italian word tight some years ago. In fact, it looked so incongruous on the page, it fairly jumped out and smacked me in the eye. I’d no idea what it meant and it didn’t even occu to me to look for it in a dictionary, so un-Italian did it seem.
It was coming across the alternative, phonetic spelling tait, and finding in the dictionary that solved this little mystery for me.
It’s what this sleek gentlman of 1900 or thereabouts is wearing and no doubt his wardrobe also contained a frac and smoking.
A tigh is a morning suit, the kind that the bridegroom wears at a formal wedding nowadays, a frac is similar but the jacket is cut off at the waist at he front and a smoking is a dinner suit.
But why? because tight/tait is a truncated translation of abito stretto, meaning a tigh-fitting garment, frac derives from frock coat, and smoking from smoking jacket which, however, it isn’t.
A feature that all three of these words, tait, frac and smoking, have in common is that they latch on to anly one part of the original two word combination. this mechanism is common in Italian and it works pretty well because the fact that a word is foreign makes it quite different from all the other words in the language, more or less.
So a miss, as in Miss World, is the winner of a beauty contest, gloss is what is lip gloss in English, un reality is a reality show, a sub, short for subacqueo, is a scuba diver, zoom is a zoom lens, spot is a both a TV and a spotlight, lifting is face-lift, spray is either a spray can or its contents, and so on. We do this in English too-opera for opera lirica, alto for contralto and, more recently, a latte for caffè latte – but not nearly as often as Italian does.
Some areas of Italian are particularly prone to adopting foreign words.
In the modern wardrobe there are jeans, slip, various types of woollies such as a golf, pullover and cardigan, perhaps even a montgomery and certainly some T-shirt as well as French items such as collant, gilet and foulard.
Soccer uses a fair number of English words as coner, dribbling, tackle and mister and breeds of dogs are often non Italian such as collie, husky and chihuahua.
English on the other hand, adopted Italian musical terms wholesale and many Italian food words, which means that we all know haow to pronunce – ce in inconcerto – te – at the end of andante, ghe – in the middle of spaghetti, – i and – zz – in pizza – sciu in prosciutto – ucci – in cappuccino and – ne – at the end of minestrone.
Which is all very useful to know. However, Italian pronunciation is very consistent ond often applied to borrowed words.

Salvatore Ferragamo Museum

Ok, we admit it, this is a girly article.
We’re talking shoes gorgeus colourful stunning shoes. A whole museum of them in fact. If you haven’t already visited the Museo Salvatore Ferragamo, add it now to your list of things to see in Florence. It’s a blissful way to spend an hour or two.
First, there’s the building. Palazzo Spini Feroni is a handsome 13 th century palazzo, which lies a few steps from Ponte Santa Trinità, the bridge over the Arno where Dante is said to have first set eyes on Beatrice (the building indeed houses the well named in her hnour, the Pozzo di Beatrice).
For over 70 years now the Palazzo has been the headquarter and flagship store of the shoemakers Salvatore Ferragamo.

The museum is on the lower floor, below street level, a tranquil refuge from the noise of modern Florence. You enter from the Piazza Santa Trinità the column of Giustizia in the centre facing down Via Tornabuoni and its designer shops.
Immediatly there is an aura of effortless style – cool music, carefully modulated ligthting. The first section of the museum introduces us to the man himself, Salvatore Ferragamo. Born in 1898 in the small town of Bonito about 100 kilometres east of Naples, Ferragamo emigrated to United States in 1914.
He seems always to have known where is talents lay saying, “I was born to be a shoemaker”. His arrival in California coincided with the early heady days of the film industry, and it wasn’t long before he had opened the Hollywood Boot Shop (great name).
By the time he returned to Italy in 1927 and settled in Florence, his reputation as shoemaker to the stars was already established and was to continue throughout his life. It was a reputation based on shoes which were beautiful, exquisitely made, and comfortable.
They were also famously light, as shown by photograph of a Ferragamo shoe with a 130 gm weight added to the scales to make it balance with an “ordinary” shoe.
We see photographs of Salvatore Ferragamo at shoe fittings with famous film stars of the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s, and bringing the link with showbiz up to date, another room is also showing a short documentary on the making of the recent film “Australia” the Ferragamo company made all Nicole Kidman’s shoes for the film. Other displays feature extracts from the Hollywood shop’s order book, a mock workshop showing the shoe-making process, with the lasts made for famous wearers, and orginal sketches and artwork used for advertising campaigns.

But the real stars are the shoes. On display at any time are hundreds of shoes from the museum’s permanent collection of over 10,000, documenting Ferragamo’s career up to his death in 1960, and beyond.
Almost a century of history told by foot wear. And what shoes! Sandals, court, shoes, wedges, ballerina shoes, ankle boots, lacing shoes, shoes with high heels, shoes with low heels, all of exquisite workman ship. And shoes in every material imaginable – not only in calf, suede, snakeskin and kid, but also in cork, satin, straw, glass, and even a pair of high-heeled sandals in 18 ct gold made for a wife of an ( unnamed) Australian tycoon.

Museo Salvatore Ferragamo is open every day except Tuesday.
Disabled access. Entrance euro 5,00.
Proceeds from admission and gift sales support young shoe designers. Book if visiting in group of 10 or more.
www.museoferragamo.it – Telephone: +39 055 3360455/456