tuscany. 500 years ago, it was the playground of some of the richest families on earth. in the countryside, they used their land to cultivate the finest produce and cattle and in the city they bankrolled the incredible explosion of art, science and architecture known as the renaissance. i love that just about everywhere you turn there s something incredible to see. the chance to actually live among these treasures, even just for a year, lured a young family from suburban new york to florence nearly 50 years ago. it seems that no matter where you are, you can always see that duomo. my family. meet joan and stan tucci. stan: i have a photograph of this, do you remember? back in 1972 we moved here because my dad was a high school art teacher taking a year off to follow his dream. stan: oh my lord. tucci: that s unbelievable. stan: all that foreshortening. tucci: i know.
a very fancy festival. the one thing that everybody has in common is the food. yeah. this event is about as far as you can get from the wheat threshing festival. here florence s richest and most powerful families have gathered, as they have for centuries, to toast the city s new creative talent from chefs and musicians, to artists hoping to follow in the footsteps of da vinci and michelangelo. you are right now in a situation where, more or less 500 years ago, the medici would have done something like this. so we re going to go and have some food now. she knows me too well. really? it s a very sophisticated form of panzenella. this looks very different to the rustic bread salad we had for lunch. daniella: but it tastes of panzanella. it completely tastes of panzanella.
disappointingly short wine crawl as bar babae is currently the only functioning wine window in florence. even if there are still 130 or so defunct ones around the city. these little wine windows don t exist anywhere outside of tuscany, another example of renaissance genius. there are too many of them. yeah. and then, completely by chance, we come across another. but the sign would be from when? that sign. the little doors of paradise. paradise, yeah. hi, hi, there you are again.
arrived? that s when it arrives more or less in that era then. which completely altered italian. completely. completely. .cuisine medici money cultivated this city, and the arts and the ideas that grew here in the renaissance changed how we all see the world. but this family also changed the way things taste. it may seem a long way from michelangelo to the greatest t-bone steak you ve ever eaten, but the medici had a hand in that too. secret. fabio picchi may look like he s fallen out of a renaissance painting, but he s actually a renowned chef, a born and bred florentine, and a master of meat. back in the 1500s most people wouldn t even get close to cuts of meat this good.
italian. completely. completely. .cuisine medici money cultivated this city, and the arts and the ideas that grew here in the renaissance changed how we all see the world. but this family also changed the way things taste. it may seem a long way from michelangelo to the greatest t-bone steak you ve ever eaten, but the medici had a hand in that too. secret. fabio picchi may look like he s fallen out of a renaissance painting, but he s actually a renowned chef, a born and bred florentine, and a master of meat. back in the 1500s most people wouldn t even get close to cuts of meat this good.