Il Poggio

Il Poggio is conveniently situated in the middle of six of Tuscany's most picturesque attractions. Naturally, Florence (Firenze) and Pisa need no introduction. But don't miss the beautiful cities of Lucca or Siena or the smaller and nearer San Gimignano or indeed Volterra - both just a very short drive away. 

San Gimignano (a World Heritage site) is probably the most famous small town in Italy, and there are few places that evoke the atmosphere of mediaeval Tuscany so powerfully. Originally there were 72 towers of which only 15 now survive - towers that represented wealth and influence more than defence and security - the higher the tower, the richer your family.

The Tale of Galileo and the Tower of Pisa

(Thanks to Joe Milana)

The story goes that in order to demonstrate to Aristotlean scholars that two balls of different weights fall at the same rate, Galileo dropped a cannon ball and wooden ball from the top of the Tower of Pisa.

This story is apocryphal. While some of his earlier predecessors actually performed this experiment, Galileo did not. However, when Galileo was an old man, one of his students did perform the demonstration to an audience of Aristotlean scholars and found in fact a slight difference in the time the two balls struck the ground. This came as no surprise to Galileo who had already explained the effects of viscosity (wind friction) years before. However the Aristotlean scholars, completely ignorant of the (then new) scientific method, walked away from this demonstration convinced that their old master had been thereby proven correct.