When people see Tuscany for the first time, they are immediately struck by the beauty of the landscape, which has been sculpted by its inhabitants for centuries.
Then, as they get to know the region, the diversity of the lines becomes more apparent. The empty and colour-changing slopes of the San Gimignano region, the orderly Chianti vines, the soft, bronze-coloured hills of the Senese, the cypress alleys of the Val d'Orcia, and the pines along the coast are only some examples of this Tuscan diversity.
The landscape that surrounds the Villa Ambretta is a synthesis of all of these aspects. The hills are covered in vines, olive groves and fields. In the valley, the Ombrone river meanders in the plain.
Maybe the reason why this landscape is so dear to us is because we see it every morning of every day. It reminds Muriel of Kandinsky's thoughts, written in a little book called "Point and Line to Plane". His argument was that creation needs to be embedded into a strict frame, and that harmony comes from oppositions and contradictions.
It is precisely because of the hardships of nature, its steep slopes, rocky fields, dry summers and sometimes harsh winters that the farmers of Maremma, generation after generation, managed to create harmony - even if it seems so natural nowadays that we could almost forget that it was born out of labour.