Free Republic

The region around Florence is renowned for its food. Ian Henderson discovers why as he joins the hunt for one of its most famous delicacies.I'm enjoying a breakfast of scrambled eggs with delicate shavings of ridiculously expensive white truffle. According to experts, it’s the perfect way to bring out the unmistakable but indefinable flavour. I’m at a perfectly dressed table on the terrace of the luxuriously relaxed Villa La Massa hotel overlooking the River Arno, a few miles outside Florence. Below a kingfisher has just shot across the water, a brighter blue than the pale Tuscan sky. Ahead are the...

Tuscany's Etruscan claim knockedModern Tuscans not descendants of ancient people, DNA says (ANSA) - Rome, May 16 - The Tuscans' proud claim to be the descendants of the ancient Etruscans has taken a knock . A DNA comparison of Etruscan skeletons and a sample of living Tuscans has thrown up only "tenuous genetic similarities", said lead researcher Guido Barbujani of Ferrara University . "If the Tuscans were the direct descendants of the Etruscans the DNA should be the same," said Barbujani, a genetecist who coordinated the study with Stanford University in the United States . The study, which appears in...