By Gail Simmons
Tuscany has a timelessness that merges medieval and modern worlds. The landscape has been shaped over many centuries, so that today the traditions of successive generations are literally etched in its hills.
Two-and-a-half millennia ago, Etruscan Volterra ruled much of the territory from the sea east to Siena. Walking through its streets today one still sees, in the cafés and piazzas, the same faces found on alabaster sarcophagi in the archaeology museum. The modern town, which only recently spread beyond its medieval walls, is still less than half the size of its Etruscan forebear.
Walking down from Volterra into the wooded hills beyond, you’ll tread paths that still show traces of ancient handiwork, and in the vineyards beyond San Gimignano you’ll see vines trained along trees – an Etruscan tradition that has been part of this landscape for 3,000 years.
Roman expansion ultimately brought Volterra’s dominion to an end in the second century BC, but the city still prospered. A magnificent theatre was excavated on the town’s lower slopes and the hills nearby were mined for mineral wealth. By the end of antiquity, great swathes of land had been cleared, given over to grazing sheep that would form the basis of the great medieval wool industry. Flocks still roam the hills, and small cloth manufacturers remain a centrepiece of Tuscany’s economy – though today the sheep are more prized for their milk to make pecorino cheese.
Amongst the many conquerors that swept down from the north to fill the vacuum left by the collapse of the Roman empire were the Lombards, a Germanic tribe of Swedish origin who worked their way down into Italy by the sixth century. The Longobardi (long-beards) established many of the trading routes that were later used by pilgrims travelling down the Via Francigena to Rome, and founded the early banks that brought prosperity to many of Tuscany’s great cities. At Pieve a Castello, they erected a baptistery which remains architecturally unique in central Italy.
The Middle Ages, of course, brought its own distinctive set of traditions. In the towns and villages you can still see religious and pagan festivals that form a continuous, unbroken link with the past. Siena’s Piazza del Campo plays host to the most famous of all – the Palio, a medieval bareback horserace that is one of the world’s most dramatic spectacles. Even if you are not able to be present to witness the race itself, in visiting Siena one can still witness the intense excitement of the build-up to this most colourful of Tuscan traditions.
