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| Introduction |
Tuscany of the Soul shows the soul of Tuscany, not the postcard one of clear always blue skies that so much advertising has accustomed us to. Duccio's Tuscany is a landscape in three dimensions where the sky, always "dirtied" and turbid with clouds and fog, stretches its shadow on the land, revealing the strength and weakness of a region whose stylistic monogram is beauty.
Looking at the shots in the book we get the impression that the subjects are squeezed into the frames of the photographs. The harmony of forms, the blend of colours - and their dosage - and overall the depth that Duccio has succeeded in putting into his work (an element far from trite and not to be taken for granted) lead us instinctively to seek beyond the photo in search of a continuity, a supplement of beauty which we must unwillingly renounce.
In all this aesthetic wisdom however there is one element that springs to the eye: in these selected photographs there is an almost total absence of human figures. Only rarely does an animal, captured in indifferent tranquillity, complete the landscape. Just one far-off shepherd, hidden and camouflaged in an image. Yet human presence is constantly perceived, grasped, intuited. The nature portrayed is never wild nature: each plant, each furrow of field, each ribbon of road has been produced by man to mould the land to his needs. An attempt to make the land an ally in the daily struggle with nature. Thus Duccio's photographs also become a kind of stratified testimony: his subjects depict a nature which, with its own power, draws a veil over the work of man, an element more evident and evocative in the winter shots but in any case one that is fundamental and sought in the images. It's as if Duccio wanted to bear witness to the moment in which nature tries to regain the upper hand which, in Tuscany, has been gained so masterfully by man. Yet it's true that photographing San Gimignano or Monteriggioni is all too easy, even with a disposable camera, such is the beauty that bursts from the walls and towers. But it is another matter to give depth, to detach the town's silhouette from earth and sky: we would say skyline in the case of much larger (but no less majestic) cities. San Gimignano seen as a challenge to the sky, reflection of an interior and wholly earthly defiance which, from envy and the longing for power, has been able to generate beauty. Monteriggioni as an imposing admonishment to the land, a circle of walls separating the kingdoms of man and nature.
For all these reasons Duccio had the idea of asking me to link these shots with passages from Tuscan authors of all periods so that the authentic Tuscan soul might emerge from both. Sincere. Not sweetened and inebriated by the "arrogance" of the sun and the patinated landscapes. Sanguine writers like Cecco Angiolieri and Dante Alighieri himself, or the more placid and ironic Folgòre da San Gimignano and Aldo Palazzeschi. Or again, writers who have read the restlessness of their own land such as Federigo Tozzi, probably the most acute interpreter of the Province of Siena, or Renato Fucini, bound like no other writer to rural Tuscany and its moods. Words that become images and images that speak to us, in a play of references and counterpoints that bring forth the musicality, and at the same time the roughness, of the land of Tuscany.
And if it is true that Zeus and his children feared the night because their secret was written in the stars, then Tuscany too is right to fear an unsettled sky: because it is precisely in the throes of light and shadow that its most authentic soul emerges and is revealed. The soul that Duccio has had the sensitivity and art to capture.
David Baldanzi
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| Presentation |
This anthology of photographs and writings for and about Tuscany is intended as a tribute to the place where I was born and have always lived.
The photographs in the book were taken at dawn or sundown, when the natural beauty of the land, the vegetation, the sky and the animals is most genuine and absolute. Distinction between night and day and its symmetrical afternoon are the paradigm of beauty and harmony with nature. I hope I have managed to capture not only the form of things but also the silence that enveloped the scene at the moment of taking the shots. A silence that is never absence of sounds but a whispering of elements, a beguiling of the senses, eyes and ears, that reconciles earth and people. Because this is what beauty, or rather, Beauty does: it offers peace. There is no conflict where beauty is absolute, incontestable, unequivocal.
Yes, this collection may also be seen as a study of Beauty, annotated with verse and prose that have already found their own way to the Beautiful. An aesthetic but also, if I may say so, initiatory itinerary. I've tried to capture fragments of aesthetic and ecstatic pleasure through the lens, which is my way of defending beauty. Because to defend beauty also - and above all - means to defend nature, the environment and art, the most authoritative identity card of our civilisation.
Lastly, Tuscany of the Soul is intended more as a book for Tuscany than a book about Tuscany. It may reveal that soul which is all too often buried under clichés and advertising. A soul with the breath of Italy's greatest poets. A soul that needs to be rediscovered and understood, loved and respected.
Duccio Nacci
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