Discover Tuscany’s Blog: exploring Tuscany and all its hidden corners…

Visiting Florence and Tuscany is an unforgettable experience. For many, it might be a trip made once in a lifetime, for others it will be start of a love affair that makes you return over and over again. I first came to Florence over 10 years ago and have made it my home for almost 7 years now. Falling in love with an Italian certainly helped pave the way for my permanent stay .

In all these years, I’ve never really felt unsafe in Florence. The historical center is small, especially compared to many other European cities. You can walk almost everywhere, and there are people on the streets at all hours, making us feel relatively safe. Like all cities in the world, though, there is an uglier, shadier side that exists around this center. I was reminded of Florence’s darker side this last week when I had my purse/camera bag snatched just as I was leaving the city center.

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The tiny medieval village of Volterra in central Tuscany will be the setting for the shooting of “New Moon“, the second chapter of the “Twilight” series by Stephenie Meyer. As I read in a recent article on Variety Magazine , Eagle Pictures announced that the cast would move to Volterra for the shootings for the movie for a couple of weeks, most likely in May.

Many movies have been filmed in Tuscany, the last ’007 movie “Quantum of Solace” comes to mind as one of the latest. That film was partially set in Siena during the Palio horse race days (read our article of the Palio in Siena) . I was wondering, however, why would they choose Volterra for  “New Moon”? The answer is easy for “Twilight” fans but not everyone knows that Stephanie Meyer’s books have one of the most powerful vampire families, the Volturis, come from Volterra and thus an important part of the story is set in this Tuscan village.

Volterra is a true medieval gem and one of my favorite Tuscan cities. I’m really curious to see the city as the setting for some vampire adventures and I think the citizens will also be very excited about that. The “Twilight” book series have been a great success and I hope the “New Moon” movie will make Volterra and Tuscany more popular, especially among younger visitors.

The town has created a blog dedicated to offering news on the upcoming shooting and Volterra in general; check out the New Moon Volterra Town Blog.

Florence without the Medici family in its past would not be the Florence we have today. There were certainly other wealthy families in Florence that were patrons of the arts but none to the extent of the Medici dynasty.
Under the Medici, Florence became the “cradle” of the Renaissance. Palaces and churches were built for the family and then everything from tapestries, furniture, household objects and paintings and statues were commissioned to adorn these palaces and churches. As rulers of the city, the Medici had to show off their power to impress not only the citizenry but other powerful rulers throughout Europe.

The Medici dynasty ended with the death of Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici on February 17, 1743. Before her death, she created the “Patto di Famiglia” where she willed all personal property of the Medici family to the city of Florence with the explicit condition that none of the Medici artistic patrimony was ever to be removed from the city.

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