Bringing Tuscany Home: Sensuous Style From the Heart of Italy [Hardcover]

Frances Mayes (Author), Edward Mayes (Author), Steven Rothfeld (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 5, 2004

I always imagine each of the signoras who lived in this house—where she shelled peas, rocked the grandchild, placed a vase of the pink roses. Now I would like to take one of these women back to my house in California to show her how Bramasole traveled to America and took root, how the doors there are open to the breeze from San Pablo bay and to the distant view of Mount Tamalpais, how the table has expanded and the garden has burgeoned…


The “bard of Tuscany” (New York Times) now offers a lavishly illustrated book for everyone who dreams of integrating the Tuscan lifestyle—from home decoration and cooking, to eating and drinking, to gardening, socializing, and celebrating—into their own lives.

When Frances Mayes fell in love with Tuscany and Bramasole, millions of readers basked in the experience through her three bestselling memoirs. Now Frances and her husband, In Tuscany coauthor Edward, share the essence of Tuscan life as they have lived it, with specific ideas and inspiration for readers stateside to bring the beauty and spirit of Tuscany into their own home decor, meals, gardens, entertaining and, most important, outlook on life. In her inimitable warm and evocative tone, Frances helps readers develop an eye for authentic Tuscan style, with advice on how to:

• Choose a Tuscan color palette for the home, from earthy apricot tones to invigorating shades of antique blue.

• Personalize a room with fanciful door frames, unique painted furniture, and fresco murals.

• Cultivate a Tuscan garden, adding fountains, vine-covered pergolas, and terra-cotta urns among the herbs and flowers

• Select the best Italian vino. (Frances describes lunches at regional vineyards and imparts tips for pairing food and wine.)

• Create an atmosphere of irresistible, anytime hospitality—a casa aperta (open home).

• Make primo finds at local antiques markets. (And to help truly bring Tuscany home, shipping advice and market days for several Tuscan towns are included.)

• Set an imaginative Tuscan table using majolica and vintage linens.

• Enjoy the abundant flavors and easy simplicity of the Tuscan kitchen, with details on everything from olive oil and vino santo to pici and gnocchi, plus special homegrown menus and recipes.

• Make the most of a trip to Tuscany, visiting Frances’s favorite hill towns, restaurants, small museums, and other soothing places.


With more than 100 photos by acclaimed photographer Steven Rothfeld (including several of the Mayes’s California home and its Tuscan accents), twenty-five all-new recipes, and lists of resources for travelers and shoppers, Bringing Tuscany Home is a treasure trove of practical advice and memorable images.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Only those who love sitting through slides from other people's vacations are likely to warm to Mayes's latest, on the joys of owning a renovated Tuscan villa. Mayes's first book on the subject, Under the Tuscan Sun, sold two million copies and spawned a Hollywood film, but with each return visit to familiar territory (Bella Tuscany; In Tuscany) Mayes finds less fresh material. This work is a grab bag of guess-you-had-to-be-there anecdotes (Mayes devotes an entire paragraph to the activities of a wasp that flies into her study while she's writing) and suggestions for how readers can, as Mayes and her husband, Ed, do, live the good life in northern California and Italy. (Hint: it takes a lot of money.) The book includes 25 recipes, though few are specifically Tuscan. Instead, Mayes devotes space to Nancy Silverton's Italian Plum Tart (Silverton, founder of Los Angeles's Campanile restaurant, has her own villa one valley over) and several recipes of Ed's. The listing of Mayes's own "At Home in Tuscany Collection" of furniture at book's end adds to the coyly self-indulgent feel.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Mayes' In Tuscany (2000) is a glossy coffee-table volume that combines a cookbook, a guidebook, and Mayes' appreciative ruminations about Tuscan culture. With the help of her husband, poet Edward Mayes, she revisits much of the same material, but this title reads more like a lifestyle guide for Italophiles yearning to bring the Tuscan sun into their own homes. The loosely organized chapters focus on home and garden design, food, and entertaining in spreads accompanied by Steven Rothfeld's lavish photographs of villas, fields, and the Mayes' friends enjoying la dolce vita around the table. Some of Mayes' suggestions, such as her garden tips borrowed from the Medicis, may be out of reach for many readers. And a few recipes use ingredients that are hard to find stateside. But she offers plenty of accessible ideas as well, such as the rich colors and decorative scenes painted on many Tuscan walls. And most readers won't want this for the practical specifics; they'll merely enjoy the vicarious plunge into a relaxed, gracious culture that this, like all of Mayes' titles, offers. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; 1St Edition edition (October 5, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767917464
• ISBN-13: 978-0767917469
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 0.8 x 10.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #121,766 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Frances Mayes has always adored houses, and when she saw Bramasole, a neglected, 200-year old Tuscan farmhouse nestled in five overgrown acres, it was love at first sight. Out of that instant infatuation have come four marvelous, and hugely popular, books: the bestsellers Under the Tuscan Sun, Bella Tuscany, In Tuscany, a collaborative photo-textbook with her husband, the poet Edward Mayes, and photographer Bob Krist, and Bringing Tuscany Home: Sensuous Style From the Heart of Italy, another collaborative book with Edward Mayes and photographer Steven Rothfeld. All four highly personal books are about taking chances, living in Italy, loving and renovating an old Italian villa, the pleasures of food, wine, gardens, and the "voluptuousness of Italian life." The third book in her Tuscan trilogy, Every Day in Tuscany: Seasons of an Italian Life (due out in spring 2010), is about Tuscan seasons and Mayes' reflections on her Italian life. She was awarded the Premio Casato Prime Donne for a major contribution in the field of letters in 2009.

Her first novel, Swan, a family saga and mystery, returns Mayes to her childhood home of Georgia and was published in 2002. A film version of Under the Tuscan Sun, starring Diane Lane, was released in fall of 2003. Frances Mayes was the editor for the 2002 Best American Travel Writing. She is also the author of the travel memoir entitled A Year in the World: Journeys of A Passionate Traveller, which immediately debuted as a New York Times bestseller in 2006. Working again with Steven Rothfeld, she published Shrines: Images of Italian Worship, also in 2006.

A widely published poet and essayist, Frances Mayes has written numerous books of poetry, including Sunday in Another Country, After Such Pleasures, The Arts of Fire, Hours, The Book of Summer, and Ex Voto. Her work The Discovery of Poetry: A Field Guide to Reading and Writing Poems is widely used in college poetry classes. Formerly a professor of creative writing at San Francisco State University, where she directed The Poetry Center and chaired the Department of Creative Writing, Mayes now devotes herself full time to writing, restoring an historic garden and to her "At Home in Tuscany" furniture line at Drexel Heritage. She and her husband divide their time between North Carolina and Cortona, Italy.

Biographical note from Steven Barclay Agency

"Tuscany may have found its own bard in Frances Mayes."
-- The New York Times

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

81 of 86 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Really Let Down by this book., December 5, 2005

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puppy's gal - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Bringing Tuscany Home: Sensuous Style From the Heart of Italy (Hardcover)

I was so excited when I ordered this book and so let down after getting it and looking it over. The cover is VERY deceptive. This is NOT a style/decorating book. This is the story of a couple renovating a wonderful old home in Tuscany. It is well written and at times charming and warm. It is also often quite boring reading about what stone to pick for the house and who they visited and what wine they drank. It almost seems as if the author were forcing another book out for publication!! There are VERY FEW photos...barely any really in the book. The photos present are of wine, friends, a few of the house and a few of home decor/furniture layout, and food. The photos are very striking and pretty....if you enjoy seeing their friends and not really getting any basic decorating ideas. There are about 30 recipes and photos of the food, as I said above. Some recipes are nice but I really didn't see anything new and inspiring. A good Italian cookbook would be a better investment. As for the cover....it is very deceptive to say the least since it focuses on a very pretty vignette: furniture, art, pottery and style of arrangement. This is most definitely NOT what this book is about. In fact: I found the cover to be the best part of the book. I decided to return it and look for a better book really focusing on design. The author clearly loves Tuscany and if you want a nicely written and warm hearted book to read about hers and her husband's story of renovation, friends and their love of food, wine and Tuscany then you will like this book. It is not a picture book at all but rather a reading book with a story that seems rather forced and often VERY VERY boring and drawn out for the purpose of publication.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars best feature -front cover, July 6, 2005

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N. Fairbairn "italiaphile" (port angeles, wa USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bringing Tuscany Home: Sensuous Style From the Heart of Italy (Hardcover)

very disappointing publication-suggest you save your money and check it out of the library before making a decision-the front cover was deceptive in its allure to those looking for a creative nudge in decorating tuscany style. but the most chilling part of this book,for me, was a revealing paragraph at the top of page 106 'quote' Given that the farmers probably will not be returning.I begin to plot new purposes for the hundreds of borghi in the italian hills: music camps,artists' colonies,hospices, religious retreat centers. After all,easily taking the past into the future is part or the italian genius for living.'unquote'... well, there goes he neighborhood! i'm just thankful i got to see Tuscany before the Mayes' makeover of the whole region --some people just can't leave rustic charm alone!!...norma

46 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First Class Writing and Photography Great Price. Buy It., December 27, 2004

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B. Marold "Bruce W. Marold" (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bringing Tuscany Home: Sensuous Style From the Heart of Italy (Hardcover)

`Bringing Tuscany Home' by Frances Mayes has several different faces, but it's title tells it's primary objective, which is importing to one's American home the furniture, style, feel, and `Zeitgeist' of Tuscany, where the authors Mayes have a `summer' home. For readers who are familiar with my concentration on culinary works, I was lead to buy this book for review by Amazon's bringing it up in a list of culinary titles, so I bought it largely on the strength of Ms. Mayes' reputation as the author of `Under the Tuscan Sun'. While the book does contain a few recipes, the most interesting one being an Italian plum tart borrowed from Tuscan summer neighbor Nancy Silverton of La Brea Bakery fame, it is not really a culinary title. Edward Mayes appears to be the cook of the family and most recipes are attributed to him, including a soffrito, a tomato sauce, oven roasted tomatoes, artichoke pesto, olive salsa, Tuscan beans, grilled radicchio, farro salad, fried zucchini flowers, shrimp in pasta shells, pici with fresh fava beans, potato gnocchi and sauce, pasta with pancetta, black cabbage soup, vegetable soup, eggplant parmesan, chicken with olives, rolled veal scallops, rolled sole, white peaches with almonds, and tulip shells with berries. Aside from the very last recipe, everything is pretty standard stuff.

The basis of the Mayes' expertise in Tuscan style is their ownership and renovation of a middle-sized villa just outside the village of Cortona in Tuscany for the last fourteen (14) years and their furnishing a Marin County, California home after the Tuscan style. This, more than anything else, is the meaning of the title. If this book were written by a journeyman travel writer and if it were priced above its very modest $29.95, this volume would be on a very short trip to the discount piles near the cash registers at Borders and Barnes & Noble. But, the authors are not ordinary writers. Their `day job' is being successful poets. Travel non-fiction and even novel writing appears to be more of a sidelight to their business of writing poetry. And, based on the rather grand appearance of their two homes and their antique Italian furnishings, poetry must be paying pretty well, as a supplement to income from Frances' best-selling novel and movie adaptation.

The modest list price is especially surprising when you see the quality of the photography, not only in the technical skill, but also in the careful choice of subjects and the simple consideration of providing a caption to all photographs. The captions are especially important in being able to distinguish scenes from their Tuscan house, `Bramasole' from shots of their new Marin County home which has been decorated to appear as if it were furnished by the Medici's.

One can wonder when they have time to write poetry, as their story is that their Tuscan house was at death's door when it was bought with sagging floors and numerous colonies of mice in residence. But, the house probably more than paid its keep by serving as material for poetry, fiction, and non-fiction works, some of which, as already mentioned, have been very rewarding. And, behind all the renaissance antiques and really grand decorative wall paintings, one can see very modern electrical wall switches and the latest in vinyl baseboards above the ancient Italian tiles on the floor.

The modest price is also surprising given the quality of the text. While the best reason to buy this book may be to embark on an interior-decorating project aimed at emulating Italian decorative style; the real value of the book is for the reader. How many travel writers make references to the philosophy of Edmund Husserl, the founder of Phenomenology which is best known as the theoretical underpinning of Existentialism, even though it is primarily a doctrine of epistemology, which is a study of what we can know. And, the Mayes are expert at crafting words to bring the experience of both ancient and modern Tuscany about as close to us as possible without an airline ticket to Florence. I even found a little error in medieval sociology interesting as Ms. Mayes was speculating on the closeness of houses in the Tuscan villages, speculating that the Italians rejoiced in simply being close to one another. My college history professor had a much more probable explanation in stating that this was done to conserve arable land for farming, where every square food of soil was valuable for the food it could produce.

I was pleased to discover that while Ms. Mayes is involved in a business partnership with an American furniture company in cooperation to design a line of Tuscan inspired products, there is but one small reference to this arrangement and no evidence of any commercial inducements benefiting this relationship anywhere else in the book. This is not to say there are no commercial references at all. The appendices to the book contain references to numerous Tuscan sources for wine, antiques, furniture, sculpture, scagliola (a form of mosaic using shards of gypsum ground and embedded into stone tabletops, bound, and waxed), ceramics, prints and frames, terra cotta, textiles, crystal, and tableware. True to the title of the book, all sources are of merchants or workshops in Italy. For a brief moment, I thought it would have been better to cite American sources, but then, these are easy to find for yourself in this time of the Internet.

One product for which an American source may have been nice is the Mayes' own olive oil, produced from the 500 some trees on their Tuscan property. They do give a web site for the product, so I imagine that will give sources. For the traveler, the appendices end with a selection of Tuscan hotels and eateries recommended by the authors.

This is a distinctly better than average `lifestyle' book and a worthy companion to Elizabeth Romer's `The Tuscan Year'. Highly recommended for price and words!