Tuscany Countryside

The landscape of the Val d'Orcia, a Unesco World Heritage Site, was celebrated by the painters of the Sienese School which flourished during the Renaissance period and its images, particularly the depictions of landscapes in which people are portrayed living in harmony with nature, have become an icon of the Renaissance which has profoundly influenced thinking about landscape. I am in the hills of Pienza to recount a sunrise in the Terrapille fields, with the famous cypress trees from the film 'The Gladiator' and the road that crosses the Elysees fields at the centre of the scene. Mount Amiata, the symbol of this wonderful valley, dominates the scene in the background, caressed here by the autumn lights.