Tuscany's rolling landscapes are commonly viewed as the epitome of harmony, as symbolizing an equilibrium between nature and humanity, with the region's urban centres showcasing the artistic and architectural glories of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Despite this prevailing idealization, the region has also been characterized as the historical and geographical embodiment of conflict. Since the Middle Ages, Tuscan city states have undergone acute sociopolitical clashes, as exemplified by Dante's Commedia.
Subverted Sites, in contrast, is concerned with the textual depiction of twentieth- and twenty-first-century conflicts: from the battles played out on the Tuscan landscape during the Second World War, through the Monster of Florence in the 1970s and 1980s, to contemporary Italian anxieties regarding migration and shifting demographics. Encompassing the city, the periphery, and the countryside, this monograph traces the development of the literary depiction of a Tuscany under conflict by major and lesser-known authors and film-makers hailing from Italy, Canada, the United States, Ethiopia, and Britain, and explores a range of genres, including the coming-of-age novel, the personal essay, memoir, reportage, detective fiction, true crime, horror film, and documentary film.
This study contends that the artists who depict a Tuscany less tied to its past legacy, or who at the very least attempt to problematize it, ultimately provide more innovative and thought-provoking representations of the region.