An outline of the history of Tuscany

Language and Grammar Repetition

Ex. 39. Read the text with underlined words. Explain the underlined suffixes, tenses, articles, sentence structures..

TUSCANY

From very ancient times, Tuscany has always been inhabited because of its beautiful bays and rock precipices overlooking the see, the lovely thick pine-forests, the sweet hills with their tall cypress trees, the mountains full of minerals and the temperate mediterranean climate.

The Etruscans were the population who left the deepest trace of their civilization. Although their historywas wrapped in mystery, the historic reconstructions and the uncountable escavationshave discovered tombs and towns which help us identify the first signs of their existancearound year 1000 BC. Unfortunately there are no precise indications about their writing and their language, nor about their origins. Some signs make us believe that they may have come from the cold nordic areas, others from Greece or from the neighbouring regions; others, finally, let us understand that they could be natives of the areas they lived in, that is to say in some parts of Emilia, in the whole of Tuscany, Umbria, Latium, Campania as well as on the Isle of Elba and Corsica. The Etruscans did not found a real unitary State but they organized themselves into twelve cities (therefore called Dodecapolis) modelled on the Greek polis, which were linked to one-another by religious and cultural bonds; these ties, though, did not stop the different towns from fighting for the supremacy of the territory, especially in the areas full of mines. In fact, the Etruscans were the first to fuse and process metals. Magnificent vases, weapons, working tools, objects for the house and for female ornamen t were found in this area.

This proud people reached its maximum power in the 7th and 6th century BC when they expanded their hegemony both to the north and to the south, governing Rome for over 100 years. In the 5th century BC a slow but relentless decadence started, in that the Etruscans had to fight on all fronts to defend themselves from the attacks of the Greeks, the Carthaginians and the Romans who, between the 4th and the 3rd century BC, conquered all of Etruria transforming it into the 7th Region of the Empire.

Acknowledging the Etruscans' degree of civilization, the Romans left them a certain administrative, cultural and religious autonomy and at the same time tried to attain information about the processing of metals, the systems of fortification and the organization of life. The Roman Empire and later also Tuscany reached their maximum splendour in the centuries before the birth of Christ; in the following centuries they started to undergo a moral, political, religious and cultural decadence, allowing the nordic Barbarians to conquer all the territories which had been at the centre of the Roman dominion. The region was first conquered by the Goths and by the Alemans, then by the Longobards in the 6th century AD. It was then annexed to the Marquisate of Tuscany and it managed to keep a slight cultural and religious unity between the different Free Cities and small States into which it was divided. In the 12th and 13th century the Region was dominated by the Republic of Pisa, and in the 15th century it passed under the hegemony of Florence started by the Medici family; the Medicis transformed Florence into a very important cultural and artistic centre, setting the bases for the Renaissance. In these years the Medicis were the mecenates of two artistic geniuses of eternal and universal fame, namely Michelangelo Buonarroti and Leonardo da Vinci who are still a world-wide boast for Italy and especially for Tuscany. Tuscany was the birthplace of many other artists and geniuses, who are still remembered for their Works. Among these were Dante, Boccaccio, Giotto, Galileo and Puccini, who are only some of the names of the many who have left behind masterpieces in every field of art. In 1737 the last of the Medicis, Gianga-stone, handed the Grand Duchy over to the Lorenas who continued the Medici policyuntil when, around the end of the century, it was annexed to the French Empire after a large part of Italy had been conquered by Napoleon. Tuscany was then annexed to the Kingdom of Italy in 1860 and Florence became the Capital from 1865 to 1871.

(Gian Carlo Orlandi Tuscany)

Дата добавления: 2015-03-31