Within Tuscany

Living since 1967 with his artist wife and their two Italian-born daughters on a farm near Siena, sculptor Spender (the son of British poet Stephen) centers these diverting vignettes and essays on one of his adopted country's historically and culturally richest provinces. With pithy anecdotes and an artist's sensibilities, the author evokes Michelangelo's mining of marble from the Servavezza quarries; the seaside resort of Viareggio, which witnessed several of the most dramatic episodes of Shelley's and Byron's lives; and many other areas of Tuscany's infinitely varied countryside, much of it ``carved by hand.'' His astute, empathetic, often witty portraits of neighbors, peasants, skilled artisans, notaries and priests--some of them fellow members of the village band in which he plays the clarinet--humanize the landscapes he draws so lovingly, bringing to life names and places listed in guidebooks. Photos. (Sept.)