Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Italian language is literary Tuscan, specifically the Florentine dialect, adopted as the national standard because of the prestige of works by Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolo Machiavelli, and Francesco Guicciardini. The humanist publisher Aldus Manutius formalized the canon in the 15th century by publishing Petrarch and Dante's Divine Comedy, establishing the model for modern Italian.
The Black Death arrived in Tuscany in 1348 and eventually killed 70% of the Tuscan population. Florence alone lost a third of its population in the first six months, and between 45% and 75% in the first year, according to historian Melissa Snell. The plague struck Tuscany again in 1630.
Tuscany has eight World Heritage Sites: the historic centre of Florence (1982), the Cathedral square of Pisa (1987), the historical centre of San Gimignano (1990), the historical centre of Siena (1995), the historical centre of Pienza (1996), the Val d'Orcia (2004), the Medici Villas and Gardens (2013), and Montecatini Terme as part of the Great Spa Towns of Europe (2021).
Guido d'Arezzo, an 11th-century monk from the Tuscan town of Arezzo, invented modern musical notation and the do-re-mi system of naming notes of the musical scale.
The four competing Tuscan art schools were the Florentine School, the Sienese School, the Pisan School, and the Lucchese School. The Florentine School, rooted in the naturalistic style of Giotto di Bondone, became the world's leading school by the 15th century. The Sienese School rivaled Florence but favored the decorative style of late Gothic art, with a mystical character distinct from Florentine naturalism.
The Etruscans were known in Latin as the Tusci. Their territory was called Etruria, which Romans then named Tuscia; this evolved into Tuscania and finally Tuscany. The Etruscan civilization grew between the Arno and Tiber rivers from the tenth century BCE, reached its peak in the seventh and sixth centuries BC, and was absorbed by Rome by the first century BCE.