Someone said the idea of Tuscany is a worn-out cliché. This somewhat romantic image was defined in books and movies mostly written by expatriates. There has always been a large number of expatriates (mostly British) in Tuscany who found life easier, cheaper and less morally restrictive than home. There, there was no need to keep up appearances. There are currently 275000, in a population of 3750000. This popularisation of the superficial visual vocabulary has led to a great number of imitative buildings and gardens transplanted to inappropriate settings, divorced from the original iconic landscape. This is a modest attempt, to present a counter argument, and to reassert the relevance of Tuscany, that arose after recently revisiting the region. The main tenet is the influence of the landscape on the development of the Renasisance arts and artists in the area. 

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