#houses tuscany

[hometoursandotherstuff]

OMG, the coolest, awesome, magnificent, probably haunted, home converted from a 1522 convent in Pitigliano, Italy, in Tuscany, has the witchiest fireplace just in time for Halloween. 10bds, 8ba, $5,177,453.

How many skeletons are down in this rusty old well?

The entrance hall. Look at the ancient walls, now whitewashed.

Is this not the consummate witches fireplace? The living room is gorgeous with its tile floor and curved wall.

Amazing. The kitchen looks like ancient catacombs. Look at the old vats that they must've stomped on grapes in and the old wine barrels on display. How cool is that? The nuns must've had purple feet for sure.

A cozy sitting area with fireplace outside the kitchen. This home is gorgeous - the ancient walls!

This looks like a pantry.

Lovely reading room. Look at the niche in the wall. You can't see much of the ceiling, but it looks brick and vaulted.

Great bath with the antique tub resting on stones.

Elegant bedroom. Look at the flower pattern in the floor tile and the way they made the closet in the corner.

This large bedroom has a heat hearth.

This bath looks like an elegant French style.

Beautiful smaller bedroom. Notice the ancient doors.

Cheery yellow-striped bedroom.

This long hallway has a brick heat stove.

Like a fairy tale.

The lush green grounds are stunning.

I wonder what behind the gate. Maybe a chapel or wine cellar?

This place is so dreamy.

Ancient walls. This area looks like the perfect spot for a garden.

But, that's not all. Look at this beautiful pool.

Stunning property on a 26 acre lot.

[thesixthduke]

[coolthingsguyslike]

[recherchestetique]

Caprese Michelangelo - Arezzo - Tuscany - Italy

The house where Michelangelo was born in Italy, 1475

[blueiscoool]

Italy Hails 'Exceptional' Discovery of Ancient Bronze Statues in Tuscany

Archaeologists in Italy have uncovered more than two dozen beautifully preserved bronze statues dating back to ancient Roman times in thermal baths in Tuscany, in what experts are hailing as a sensational find.

The statues were discovered in San Casciano dei Bagni, a hilltop town in the Siena province, about 160 kilometres (100 miles) north of Rome, where archaeologists have been exploring the muddy ruins of an ancient bathhouse since 2019.

"It is a very significant, exceptional finding," Jacopo Tabolli, an assistant professor from the University for Foreigners in Siena who coordinates the dig, said on Tuesday.

Massimo Osanna, a top culture ministry official, called it one of the most remarkable discoveries "in the history of the ancient Mediterranean" and the most important since the Riace Bronzes, a giant pair of ancient Greek warriors, were pulled from the sea off the toe of Italy in 1972.

Tabolli said the statues, depicting Hygieia, Apollo and other Greco-Roman divinities, used to adorn a sanctuary before they were immersed in thermal waters, in a sort of ritual, "probably around the 1st century AD".

"You give to the water because you hope that the water gives something back to you," he said of the ritual.

TIME OF CONFLICT

Most of the statues date to between the 2nd century BC and the 1st century AD, a period of "great transformation in ancient Tuscany" as it switched from Etruscan to Roman rule, the Culture Ministry said in a statement.

It was an "era of great conflicts" and "cultural osmosis", in which the Great Bath sanctuary of San Casciano represented a "unique multicultural and multilingual haven of peace, surrounded by political instability and war," the ministry said.

The statues were covered by almost 6,000 bronze, silver and gold coins, and San Casciano's hot muddy waters helped to preserve them "almost like as on the day they were immersed," Tabolli said.

The archaeologist said his team had recovered 24 large statues, plus several smaller statuettes, and noted that it was unusual for them to be made out of bronze, rather than terracotta.

Tabolli said this suggested they came from what he called an elite settlement, where archaeologists also found "wonderful inscriptions in Etruscan and Latin", mentioning the names of powerful local families, the ministry statement added.

According to Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano, the "exceptional discovery ... confirms once again that Italy is a country of immense and unique treasures".

The ministry said the statues have been taken to a restoration laboratory in nearby Grosseto, but will eventually be put on display in a new museum in San Casciano.

[livesunique]

Castello di Montegufoni, Montespertoli,Tuscany, FI, Italy

[stunninggetaways]

[andallshallbewell]

[bowz4liferz]

2000s tuscan home. 🪵

[dreamconsumer]

Louise, Crown Princess of Saxony (1870-1947) and her brother Archduke Leopold Ferdinand, Prince of Tuscany (1868–1935). They were the two eldest children of Ferdinand IV, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1835 – 1908) with his second wife Princess Alice of Parma (1849-1935).

[hometoursandotherstuff]

If you are in need of a larger home, this villa, that from the 15th to the 19th century, was added onto by the Acciaioli family, has 58 bedrooms, and 87 baths! Now, that can accommodate the whole gang, and then some. It's in Cerbaia, Florence, Tuscany Italy. The price is available upon application to buy. And, it has some great murals.

You get gorgeous Baroque sculpture and a painting just like the Sistine Chapel.

What a lovely, sunny room that opens to a terrace.

Didn't I tell you that it had great murals? Look at the gaiety of this one with minstrels, clowns, etc.

Beautiful dining room. This place isn't creepy, it gets lots of natural light.

Every day dining room steps up to a nice family room.

It has 5 reception rooms. I like this casual one with the fireplace and loft.

This is a more formal one. It's big, light and bright with a beautifully painted ceiling.

Like how the rooms have different looks. This is a more rustic Tuscany style.

With 58 bedrooms it needs a dining space to accommodate a crowd. Wish they showed a photo of the fireplace- it looks fabulous.

Look at the mural in this bedroom, plus the ceiling over the bed. Gorgeous sitting area with a sleep alcove.

The bedrooms are very large. They do use a lot of beige in here, though.

Which to choose? Different styles of bedrooms.

Of course it has its own chapel.

Has some cool courtyards and balconies and things.

Got to have a tower, too.

I wonder if they have cell phone service b/c no one would ever find you in this home.

And, a beautiful pool.

Amazing grounds.

Anybody handy with a hedge trimmer?

No matter where you look, there's a beautiful view of Tuscany.

This is gorgeous.

View of some of the rooftops.

And, one of several terraces. There's 27.18 acres of property.

[best-habsburg-monarch]

Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, reigned 1486-1519

His Wikipedia page has over 700 footnotes

Leopold III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, reigned 1790-1824

There is virtue to just getting through turbulent times.

[scooby-doo-exploration]

FROM : mairem - Tuscany, Italy

[aretis]

[blueiscoool]

The Largest Group of Ancient Bronzes in Italy Found at Sacred Baths in Tuscany

Lying on the bottom of the large Roman 'vasca' or pool, the young and very beautiful ephebe seems to be sleeping. Next to him is Hygeia (Igea), the goddess of health who was the daughter or wife of Asclepius, with a serpent curled on her arm. A bit farther away, also partly submerged, you can see Apollo, and then other divinities, matrons, youths, and emperors.

Protected for 2,300 years by the mud and boiling water of the sacred pools, a never-before-seen votive array has re-emerged from the excavations at San Casciano dei Bagni, in Tuscany, with over 24 extremely finely wrought bronze statues, five of them almost one metre tall, all complete and in a perfect state of preservation.

"It's a discovery that will rewrite history and one which more than 60 experts from all over the world are already working on," archaeologist Jacopo Tabolli tells ANSA in an exclusive preview.

The young professor from the University for Foreigners of Siena has been leading the project since 2019, on a permit from the Ministry of Culture and the support, also financial, of the small town's municipal council.

It's an "absolutely unique" treasure trove, he underscores, which has been accompanied by an incredible quantity of inscriptions in Etruscan and Latin as well as thousands of coins and a series of equally interesting plant offerings.

After taking up office only a handful of days before, Minister or Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano has already visited the conservation laboratory that has just welcomed the statues and now applauds "an exceptional discovery that confirms once again that Italy is a country full of huge and unique treasures".

"The layering of different civilizations is a unique feature of Italian culture," enthuses the head of the Collegio Romano.

"It's the most important discovery since the Riace Bronzes and is certainly one of the most significant discovery of bronzes ever made in the history of the ancient Mediterranean," says, beside him, the ministry's director general of museums, Massimo Osanna, who has just approved the purchase of the 16th century palazzo that will house the marvels yielded by the Great Bath in the village of San Casciano, a museum which will be flanked in the future by a full-blown archaeological park.

Luigi La Rocca, general director for archaeology, shares their enthusiasm and stresses "the importance of the method used in this excavation", which as was the case of the most recent discoveries at Pompeii, also here saw the involvement of "specialists from all disciplines, from architects to geologists, and from archaeo-botanists to experts in epigraphy and numismatics".

Fashioned in all likelihood by local craftsmen, the 24 statues that have just been found can be dated between the second century BC and the first century AD, explains Tabolli, speaking alongside the field director Emanuele Mariotti and Ada Salvi from the Superintendency.

The shrine, with its bubbling hot pools, its sloping terraces, its fountains, and its altars, existed at least from the third century BC and remained active until the fifth century AD, Tabolli says, when in Christian times it was shut down but not destroyed, its pools sealed with heavy stone pillars, and the divinities entrusted respectfully to the water.

It is also for this reason that, having removed that covering, the archaeologists found themselves looking at a still-intact treasure trove, in effect "the greatest store of statues from ancient Italy and in any case the only one whose context we can wholly reconstruct," says Tabolli.

Partly arranged on the branches of a huge tree trunk set into the bottom of the pool, and in many cases covered with inscriptions, the statues, like the countless votive offerings, came from the great families of the local area and beyond, members of the elites of the Etruscan and the Roman worlds, landowners, local lords, affluent classes from Rome and indeed also emperors.

Here, surprisingly, the Etruscan language appears to have survived much longer than what has hitherto been assumed, and Etruscan knowledge in the medical field appears to have been recognized and accepted in the Roman era too.

In short, it is a great shrine that appears to recount itself as a unique place for the ancients too, a sort of a bubble of peace, if you think, as Tabolli explains, "that even in historical epochs in which the most awful conflicts were raging outside, inside these pools and on these altars the two worlds, the Etruscan and Roman ones, appear to have co-existed without problems".

Perhaps, the archaeologist posits, because of the fact that water had since its origin remained the presiding deity with its divination, force and power: "Here time passes, language changes, even the names of the deities change, but the type of worship and the therapeutic intervention remain the same." The excavation work will now stop and resume in the spring.

Winter will be used for restoring, studying and understanding.

"It will be team work, as it has always been so far," proudly smiles Tabolli.

The work will involve the university, the ministry, the local town council, and specialists from other universities from all over the world. All together, with a unique opportunity for writing an entirely new chapter in ancient history.

[scarlet-and-blue]

Tuscan house 🤎