Author(s): Matthew Spender

Travel

More than 20 years ago, sculptor Matthew Spender and his wife left England for what they intended to be a brief interlude in Tuscany. In his memoir Spender takes us on a meditative tour of the place he now calls home - ranging back in time to the 1260 battle of Montaperti when for the last time the Sienese defeated the Florentines, through the days when Byron and Shelley wandered the streets of Pisa, to the present day farmers who use ancient methods to make olive oil. Spender combines history, anecdote and personal observation into a cultural profile of the region, as well as presenting a portrait of a family building a life together in a strange land.