"Niente, niente," sighs Paolo. No fish. Hand over hand, he and his assistant Massimo pull in a mile of fishing net from the depths of the Tyrrhenian Sea. It yields only two dozen small fish and five octopuses. To prove this is just an off-season slump and has nothing to do with his skills as a fisherman, he pulls from a hatch a bulging photo album that relives the day last October when he caught 55,000 pounds of fish.

Blond, broad-shouldered, and with eyes as blue as the sea in which he fishes, Paolo Fanciulli has been trolling for almost all of his 38 years. He docks his boat at the village of Talamone, in the heart of Tuscany's coast, where he's lived all his life. "I went to Amsterdam last year to visit a friend for two weeks, and after two days I was crying for Talamone," he says. "I thought, 'Why did I ever leave the Maremma?'" 

To the people who live and work in the forgotten corner of Tuscany called the Maremma, ties to the land are as strong as the summer's punishing heat (the temperature frequently tops 100 degrees in July and August). This is not the romantic Tuscany seen in coffee-table books; this is where people set their calendars by the season and their days by the sun. This is Tuscany at its most exposed: unguarded and without pretense.

THE LAND BEFORE TIME If it seems as if time has forgotten the Maremma, in a way it has. The region is at once the oldest and youngest part of Tuscany. Here, Etruscans fought to make a living from the waterlogged land (the word maremma means "swamp"), but the Romans who conquered them could never maintain the complex irrigation system, and the land fell into disuse. Widespread malaria made it uninhabitable for centuries, save by the criminals and bandits who fled here to hide among the dense macchia scrub. Even the Renaissance bypassed the Maremma. One of the only lasting Medici influences seen here is the series of ancient towers rebuilt by Cosimo in the 16th century to protect Tuscany's coast from marauders. 

Only in 1828, when Grand Duke Leopold II, a member of the Austrian imperial family that ruled Tuscany until the mid-1800s, began broad land reclamation projects did people start filtering back in from the protective hills. When the last swamps were drained in the 1950s and malaria was finally eradicated, the modern Maremma was born.

Today, the region stretches from Cecina in the north to Monte Argentario in the south, from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the edge of the hilly interior. Within its borders are reminders of the more familiar Tuscany: a rolling landscape of sunflowers, grapes, and olives. But there are also fields of corn and wheat, coastal plains home to hundreds of shorebirds, dense woods sheltering deer and wild boar, and long corridors of umbrella pines and cypress trees that stand as barriers against the wind.

"As a child I remember how salty the winds were," recalls Franca Spinola as we drive through a long alley of cypress trees planted by her mother as windbreaks. Spinola is owner of La Parrina, a 1,100-acre farm near Orbetello that was a wedding present from her great-grandfather. At the heart of the property is a cluster of farmhouses, originally built close together for protection against roaming bandits. Now the buildings constitute a beautiful agriturismo where guests can experience life in the country. But with the region on the periphery of Tuscany, both literally and figuratively, Spinola cannot rely on guests alone, so she continues to make the farm self-sustaining. La Parrina produces cheese, olive oil, fruit, yogurt and, of course, wine. By Tuscany's standards, the farm is a small producer-only 150,000 bottles a year-but it's drawing an international following. Its wine carries an earthy essence of rosemary and sage. "That flavor is everywhere in the air here," says Spinola, who grows seven varieties of rosemary. "It is a true Maremman wine." 

Walking through the extensive vineyards later that day, Spinola stops at a hilltop near an old barn. Bending low, she brushes away the grass from a slate of white stone flecked with red-evidence of ancient Roman construction. "See there? You can see where there's a foundation laid," she says. "The Maremma is a very rich place, but you have to go find the history yourself."

LIMESTONE COWBOYS You also have to know where to look. Near the coast, by the town of Alberese, is the Maremma's richest treasure-not a cathedral or a painting, but a park. A masterpiece of preservation, the Natural Park of the Maremma spans 40 square miles and encompasses everything from marshes and mountains to calcareous cliffs and sandy seashore. It was designated a protected area in 1975 and is understandably called one of the last earthly paradises in Italy. The best way to see it is with the men who know it best: the cowboys known as the butteri. 

Every day for more than 100 years, these men have ridden out on horseback to herd the rare white cattle that roam the park. I meet three of the butteri early one morning by the stables. They arrive together on foot, dressed alike in plaid cotton shirts, green vests, tan pants, and leather gaiters. After a nodded "Good morning," two of them, Davide and Stefano, walk into the corrals to choose today's horses from the herd at the fence. "Carmen, Adriatica, Corsica, Lima ..." Sandro, the white-haired butteri captain, takes the morning roll call of horses, all 130 of whom he knows by name. Sandro's body is hardened from 21 years in the saddle, but smiles break through as he talks about the animals and the job that has been a way of life for men here since the 19th century. The butteri remain among the region's most visible symbols, and stories of their prowess are legendary. When William Cody's Wild West Show came to Italy in 1905, the American cowboys challenged the butteri to a test of skills. The butteri won. 

Halfway through the morning, we leave the ranch boundary and turn into the park wilderness. Under a corridor of pines, we ride through a narrow valley alongside chalky cliffs topped with the crumbling defensive towers. Herons and egrets take off and land on the Ombrone River which feeds the region's only surviving marshes. The horses' hoofbeats scare up three wild boars, which bolt into nearby caves for safety.

The Uccellina Mountains ("mountains of the little bird") cover two-thirds of the park, standing only 1,362 feet high at the highest point, though dramatic nonetheless when set against the neighboring pastureland. Among the hilltops is the abandoned 12th-century abbey of the monks of San Rabano, who once made a brave attempt to cultivate the swampy and pine-shrouded land. 

Our final destination is the beach and the azure water of the Tyrrhenian Sea. By the time we reach the sand, we've ridden more than six miles, and the horses are just as glad to splash in the water as the riders. However, Davide allows only a few minutes of play before he signals we have to return. There are schedules to keep and he has farmwork to do. Leaving the beach behind, we canter back into the trees.

THE FUGITIVE KIND Though the Maremma is only a two-hour drive from Florence, many guidebooks give it barely a reference; others don't mention it at all. The north-south Via Aurelia speeds right down the middle, but no signs announce when you enter the Maremma. True to its past, it remains the most overlooked part of Tuscany. Even at noon on a Saturday, the stone herringboned streets of the medieval town of Sovana are empty. There are no visitors at the stunning pre-Romanesque duomo, and I study in solitude the intricately carved ninth-century ciborium at the Church of Santa Maria. Just beyond town, I hike through ancient trenches cut 65 feet into the earth by the Etruscans. (Though their exact purpose remains a mystery, the vie cave were most likely a method of moving people or animals between towns without being detected by enemies.)  

In Pitigliano, an imposing fortress built entirely on soft tufa rock, the remaining 13 arches of a 16th-century aqueduct, are almost as impressive as the city itself. Pitigliano is a frenetic jumble of building blocks growing straight out of the cliff on which it's built; you can't tell where the rock ends and the city begins. Dark windows and caves puncture the weathered rock facade-a multitude of eyes watching as you approach.

My day ends with a pilgrimage to beautiful Feniglia Beach. It's three miles long and connects Monte Argentario with the coastal city of Orbetello. On one side is the sand, on the other a wild strip of tall umbrella pines shading stands of myrtle and juniper. All I can think is that this is the last thing Caravaggio saw before he died. The painter was renowned for his ability to render light with an almost theatrical intensity. He escaped to the Maremma fleeing a murder charge in Rome. On a hot day in July, 1610, he is said to have expired on the sand of heatstroke. 

I step off the beach and back onto the wooded path. The sun drops below the treetops overhead, creating a dappled chiaroscuro. A startled hawk flies up from the edge of the trail, and white egrets drift in for a landing among the reeds. In the distance, the lights of Orbetello flicker on, a prelude to the stars that will soon reflect in water the texture of billowing silk. Reluctantly, I turn back to the city.