I always fantasize that it's ancient, but then I saw that this one was some kind of shampoo.'įor Ed Mayes, the garden means as much as the house, not least because it provides some of the other essentials that the book deals with: food, the essence of Italy. Mayes points out a cistern 'constructed with arches, and everyone has told us that it connects with the system up in the Medici fortress.'īut bits of it turn out to be not so ancient, as Mayes shows a piece of glass: 'It looks like Roman glass to me. Once a jumble of weeds, rocks and brambles, the garden, too, yielded insights into ancient history. So we're continuing to develop other parts of the garden.' 'But they're not going to be through with you. 'You know, you would like to be through with old houses,' explains Frances Mayes. But Bramasole is turning from peoccupation to raison d'être. The two still live and work mainly in California. But, around here, it's not a very old house.' The fireplace had to be stripped of what Frances Mayes described as 'hideous shiny baby blue tile.' But seemingly endless labor found unexpected rewards: A fresco appeared from under layers of paint, plaster and dust that caked a wall of the dining room.įrances Mayes observes, 'Two hundred years is very old in America.

It just began to grow.'Ĭonsidering what it was like when the couple decided to buy it, Bramasole today is a thing of simple beauty.

'I was keeping a notebook the way I had always kept a notebook as a poet, and just felt there was so much going on that I started reading and writing more about Italy. The name of the house is Bramasole, which means 'yearns for the sun.'ĭid Frances Mayes make the move with a view to writing about it, or did the writing just grow out of what she was doing? Under the Tuscan Sun is both the story of the restoration the house and a celebration of Italy's Tuscany region. Adds Ed Mayes, 'It was a new culture, a new language, a new way of living.'

Frances and ed mayes