Beautiful Tuscany is a north western province of Italy. Some of the main cities in Tuscany are Firenze (Florence), Pisa, San Gimignano, Lucca and Siena. Tuscany is the birth place of the Renaissance era and . Tuscany became wealthy due to the introduction of banking in this area in the wake of the Crusades when crusaders who exchanged all their belongings for cash needed a place to keep the cash while they were on military duty in the holy land. Many crusaders never returned and their wealth remained in the banks.

Banking was streamlined by powerful banking families like Bardi, Peruzzi and  the most famous among them - the Medicis. Where there is wealth, there is Fine art, Architecture, Music, Literature and Revolutionary thought. Tuscany thus became a great cultural center in the post medieval era and played home to the likes of Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Donatello, Botticelli, Torrigiano, Petrarch etc. By extension Tuscany is also the birth place of Modern Science - Galileo Galilee is from Tuscany. Amerigo Vespucci was a Florentine explorer - and - one Christopher Columbus was from nearby Genoa. Check out this neat site about Donatello

The wealthy live well and Tuscany is no exception. Tuscany is home to the Chianti (Ki-yan-ti) region famous for its wines. 

 

And Food - in particular Wild boar! The wild boar poses a bit of a problem here - it's both an emblem of the region and a delicacy. The boar, however, is safe with us - we are vegetarian!

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