Florence & Tuscany: More Recommended Reading and Viewing
Non-Fiction
Among the classics of Italian literature with particular relevance to Florence are Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince and Florentine Histories.
For a historical overview of the whole city, try The City of Florence (R.W.B. Lewis), which has a biographer's perspective. In Florence: A Portrait, Michael Levey writes with a curator's expertise. The Stones of Florence bubbles with Mary McCarthy's wit.
Architecture fans should consider reading the novel-like Brunelleschi's Dome (Ross King) or The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance (Peter Murray),which presents a (not too dry) textbook overview. For an academic take on Italian art history, try The Lives of the Artists (Giorgio Vasari) or Italian Renaissance Art (Laurie Schneider Adams).
Christopher Hibbert tells of the intrigues of Florence's first family in The House of Medici (his Florence is also recommended). Fortune Is a River (Roger D. Masters) describes a scheme between Machiavelli and da Vinci to re-route the Arno (which, thankfully, never happened).
If you'll be traveling to the area outside of Florence, consider the sensuous travel memoir, The Hills of Tuscany (Ferenc Máté). Also worthwhile is A Tuscan Childhood (Kinta Beevor), about growing up in a sun-drenched villa. Under the Tuscan Sun was a bestseller for Frances Mayes (and is better than the movie of the same name). Another memoir on the adventure of renovating a Tuscan farmhouse is A Small Place in Italy (Eric Newby).
Fiction
Florence was a favorite destination for European aristocrats and artists in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Italian influence lives on in classics written during that time, including George Eliot's Romola and E.M. Forster's A Room with a View.
For a modern read, consider The Passion of Artemisia, by Susan Vreeland (who also wrote the bestselling Girl in Hyacinth Blue) and The Sixteen Pleasures (Robert Hellenga), set during the great floods that wracked the city in 1966. Birth of Venus, by Sarah Dunant, chronicles the story of a teen girl striving to survive Savonarola's reign. While it's written as a novel, Galileo's Daughter (Dava Sobel) is based on the real-life letters between the scientist and his daughter.
Page-turning mysteries set in Florence include A Rich Full Death (Michael Dibdin), Death of an Englishman (Magdalen Nabb), The Dante Game (Jane Langton), and Bella Donna (Barbara Cherne). For a fun Michelangelo potboiler, try The Agony and the Ecstasy (Irving Stone).
The Light in the Piazza (Elizabeth Spencer), the story of a mother and daughter visiting in the 1950s, was a movie (from 1962) and recently became an award-winning Broadway musical.
And for the lover of classical tales, Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron, written in the mid-1300s, is set in plague-ridden medieval Florence.
Films
For a well-done Shakespeare flick that was filmed in Tuscany, try Much Ado About Nothing (1993), which is actually set in Sicily. A Room with a View (1986) captures the charm of the book of the same name (see above). Under the Tuscan Sun — filled with eye-candy views — falls flat in comparison. Oscar-winning Life Is Beautiful (1997) has sections set in a Tuscan town.
If you'll be traveling to San Gimignano, consider watching these films set in that locale: Prince of Foxes (1949) and Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991). Two films by Franco Zeffirelli were also set in "San G": Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972) and Tea with Mussolini (1999).
If Siena is on your itinerary, try Palio (1932), Stealing Beauty (1996), and Up at the Villa (2000), which also has scenes set in Florence. The English Patient (1996) was partially shot in Montepulciano. Filmed in Lucca, The Triumph of Love (2001) has a baroque feel, while The Portrait of a Lady (1996) stays true to Henry James' bleak novel.
In 2005, PBS produced an excellent docudrama about Florence's first family, Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance (with a fine website: www.pbs.org/empires/medici).
For lots more information, check out our best-selling Rick Steves' Florence & Tuscany guidebook — or join us on one of our free-spirited tours in Europe.