Despite his busy schedule, Italian tenor and star Andrea Bocelli [2] took the time to surprise a small group of press representatives gathered at The Ritz Carlton to talk about his native region...Tuscany.

“My memories of Tuscany are stored deep down in the depths of my soul. They accompany me wherever I go, because I am a product of this land, the sum total of my past, my experiences and my childhood dreams.” Thus writes the maestro in the introduction to the book Voices of Tuscany, a guide to the emotions the much loved Italian region offers its guests written by Giorgio De Martino with quotations, sensations and reminiscences by Bocelli, a Tuscan voice par excellence, himself.

The book was presented to the press in an event held under the auspices of the Consulate General, with the collaboration of ENIT [3], Regione Toscana [4] and Toscana Promozione [5].

“When asked what Tuscany is to me,” Bocelli started to say, “I reply just like the Chinese, who think China is the center of the world, do. Tuscany, to me, is the center of the world. I have gotten used to traveling all over, and feeling at home wherever I go, but Tuscany remains absolutely irreplaceable. Tuscany is not just the main cities that everybody is already familiar with, Tuscany is much more... it's small towns perched on hill tops, it's undiscovered islands and sandy beaches, it's theaters and music, it's literature and amazing food.”

The book, published by De Agostini, helped Bocelli discover new places “after reading it I realized I did not know Tuscany at all,” he added, “and that I gave so much for granted. De Martino studied each and every little town thoroughly and really entices the reader to go and experience it personally.”

De Martino's “elegant and refined words” accompany readers on a unique itinerary through the region, and feature best-known resources as well as less explored, evocative locations, since as the author says: “Tuscany is the region of the soul: I perceive this clearly every time I travel through it. As a non-native and a musician, I profess to consider it my own, as it is for anyone who chooses it as such) adopted homeland, which I have loved, studied and experienced for a quarter of a century. Each landscape, flavor, work of man or nature, has its own melody, an intensity, a color: Tuscany is a score which anyone can play, with their own sensibility, with the instrument of their own experience, wherever they are from. It is no accident that Andrea Bocelli is a native son of this land, an extraordinary singer loved the world over, like Tuscany itself.”

And Bocelli was not shy in expressing his love for the region, he did it with that frankness he explained is so typical of Tuscan people. “Just like Curzio Malaparte wrote in Maledetti Toscani (his 1956 book that is an attack on middle and upper-class culture) Tuscan people are not phony, they are outspoken and sincere, they will tell you what they think right in your face.” The maestro invited, with an honest smile, all readers to visit Tuscany, express their own voice regarding the emotions it arouses in them.

The first to share their emotions, along with Bocelli, about Tuscany were ENIT's director Eugenio Magnani, who mentioned the David by Verrocchio and glasses of Chianti, Consul General Natalia Quintavalle, a native of Pietrasanta, in the province of Lucca, who vacations in Cortona, the town of Under the Tuscan Sun, and Alberto Peruzzini, Head of Tourism Toscana Promozione, who shared some interesting data... Americans love to visit Tuscany, “and most of them go to Cortona,” he joked. Last year almost a million Americans visited Tuscany making them the second population visiting the region. “This new book, will suggest new travel experiences,” he added.

And the list is long: Livorno, Arezzo, Isola d'Elba, Capraia, Barga, Lajatico (Bocelli's hometown and home to the evocative Teatro del Silenzio), Volterra, Montalcino, San Casciano...the map by the index of the book will help any reader with their journey of emotions and unique landscapes.