Tuscan Lighting

The sober look that represents Tuscan lighting has nothing to do with what is usually meant as Tuscan lighting.


The Rococo look of some over-worked, over-embellished crystal lamps that you see at some shop bare the style that is much more proper to those parts of Italy that have been exposed to Byzantine culture, such as the North East of Italy, with Venice being the capital of Byzantine art in Italy.

So if you are looking for real Tuscan lighting, look no further than those humble looking lamps that truly represent the traditional character of Tuscany and of Tuscan people in general.

That is not to say that there in anything esthetically wrong with much more elaborated lighting; however if you are looking forward to having a truly Tuscan feeling in your home, set your mind to letting go all the cliches that are usually thought of as truly Tuscan.


In the case of a table or floor lamp, Tuscan lighting is mainly composed of a wooden body and a no-frills shade, or no shade at all. The body of the lamp may be painted with pastel colors, or antique gold or silver paints.

In the case of a ceiling Tuscan lighting, you will be surprised how little you can find to be truly originally Tuscan, since up until the 1960s Tuscan economy was mainly supported by agriculture, and the living conditions in the Tuscan countryside were far from worrying anyone about carving out a great looking ceiling lamp. Most likely, if you were to enter one of those poor houses, you would have seen hanging from the ceiling an anchovy or sardine used to give taste to cornmeal by rubbing it on top of the hung fish. That way it would last much longer.

This is just to give you an idea of what is behind traditional Tuscan lighting. Some richer people surely did have much more elaborated lighting. Some exaples are those of the Grand Duke of Tuscany Leopoldo, which are characterized by a wooden body with curved movable arms and decorated with achantus leaves. This is as elaborated as it gets.


Of course, contemporary Tuscan lighting has a completely different character.
It is hard to distinguish it from any other contemporary style as everything nowadays is very linear and functional. However, some artisans still create wrung iron lamps and hand carved wooden lamps that remind of the antique Tuscan lighting.