Acknowledgments

My great thanks to Peter Ginsberg, my agent, and Charles Conrad, my editor at Broadway Books. Special thanks to Dave Barbor, my foreign rights agent, and Douglas Stewart, both of Curtis Brown Ltd. Working with William Shinker, Trigg Robinson, Kathy Spinelli, Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich, Pei Loi Koay, and the entire staff at Broadway Books has been a pleasure. To Ann Hauk and Jon Chick, many thanks.

Many friends were important to me while I was writing this book: Josephine Carson, Susan MacDonald and Cole Dalton, Ann and Walter Dellinger, Robin and John Heyeck, Kate Abbe, Rena Williams and Steve Harrison, Todd Alden, Toni Mirosevich and Shotsy Faust—you're welcome to pull up a chair at my table anytime. All thanks to my family and to Ed's—Bramasole's portone always will swing open to greet you.

The people who live in Cortona have given me this book; all I had to do is write. Special thanks to Donatella di Palme and Rupert Palmer, Giuseppina Paolelli, Serena Caressi, Giorgio Zappini, Giuseppe Agnolucci, Ricardo and Amy Bertocci, Nella Gawronska, the Molesini family, Riccardo and Sylvia Baracchi, Giulio Nocentini, Antonio Giornelli, Lucio Ricci, Edo Perugini, and to our great neighbors, the Cardinali family: Placido, Fiorella, and Chiara. We are fortunate to have landed in their midst. With tremendous gratitude, I thank il Sindaco, Ilio Pasqui, and il Consiglio Comunale di Cortona for conferring on me la cittadinanza onoraria, honorary citizenship.

My thanks to the editors of National Geographic Traveler, Attaché, San Francisco Magazine, the San Francisco Examiner, the Lands' End catalogue, and Within Borders for publishing portions of this book in their pages.