Valdinievole. Un itinerario ottocentesco.

The origins of the book lie in the rediscovery of a photographic album dedicated to Ferdinando Martini, man of letters and politician who lived in this Tuscan territory. Dating to before 1896, the photos in the album (all largeformat and in excellent condition) were used, together with many others of similar subjects, to illustrate the guidebook ‘In Val di Nievole'. The photographic campaign was entrusted to the photographer Alfredo Lumachi. Other photos on the same theme, fruit of a photographic campaign carried out by Alinari around 1890, have also been included. Like any guidebook worthy of its name the aim was to interest potential tourists and entice them to take a trip to these places, at the time unknown and therefore even more fascinating. Today, thanks to the book, we follow in their steps, rediscovering towns, hidden corners, the most secluded places of a territory with vast borders and the multifaceted settings that characterized the Valdinievole at the time. This can therefore be thought of as a pioneer journey in the Tuscany of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, an area that was geographically and culturally circumscribed but varied.