Several scenes of the film Nostalghia directed by Andrei Tarkovsky were set in the hills of Tuscany and the tiny village of Bagno Vignoni.
Tarkovsky co-wrote the screenplay with Tonino Guerra, an Italian poet, writer and screenwriter who collaborated with some of the most prominent film directors of the world. This location they also found together, while travelling around Italy a year before the filming.
Where in a normal Italian town there is a square, in Bagno Vignoni there’s a huge, stone-lined medieval pool with healing water from mineral springs. The pool with its mysterious atmosphere fascinated Tarkovsky. “When we arrived here, in the magical village of Bagno Vignoni,” recalled Tonino Guerra, “I noticed how Andrey became agitated in front of a pool full of warm water, where, according to legend, St. Catherine of Siena bathed". Tarkovsky really liked the place, took endless pictures of it and one year later returned here to film Nostalghia.
