Treasures of Sacred Art: Tuscan Journeys

Produced for Italian television, Treasures of Sacred Art: Tuscan Journeys is a 30-part, 15-hour tour of sites housing sacred art throughout the west central Italian region of Tuscany, with the original narration replaced with English. The Renaissance center of Florence, together with its environs, understandably receives significant attention, but Siena, Pisa, Pistoia, and other towns and cities are also visited, as the filmmakers briefly touch on each locale's architecture, before looking at the local churches, monasteries, and museums—both their construction and their contents. An immense variety of artwork is covered over the course of this journey, from the buildings themselves and the paintings and sculptures they contain (by Michelangelo, Giotto, Brunelleschi, Donatello, and others) to friezes, tapestries, chalices, and even mannequins and vestments. In fact, this beautifully-filmed, nicely-edited series offers a more complete tour of Tuscan masterpieces than even the most assiduous visitor could manage to see on a real trip, while also adding excellent commentary on both the individual artists and the historical context of the works—as well as a deeply-felt appreciation of their beauty—all set to a pleasant background score of baroque music, mostly by Bach and the Italian masters. Highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (F. Swietek)