Florence, June 2008

I made the fatal mistake of losing the scraps of serviettes that I had scribbled my notes on but I can remember this much about Florence:

Don’t offend the locals by saying that the ice-cream is better than the statue of David, especially if you haven’t seen the statue yet because when you do you’ll realise what a stupid thing it is to say. Michelangelo was a genius.

Handbags are a necessity, never a luxury.

It is never too early in the day for gelato, there is no such thing as too much extra virgin olive oil, every conference needs its own barista, good Chianti will never give you a headache and it’s quite possible to drink four glasses of it and still cycle down Tuscan Hills without crashing – just don’t use the front brake.

Being outside high up on the Duoma, watching a summer thunderstorm roll in over the city and crash over you is a religious experience. The evening storms also drew out a shadow people that do not wear Gucci or Prada: North and West African migrants sold umbrellas and plastic ponchos to those of us who had assumed summer in northern Italy would be dry and felt cheated by the fact that it was warmer in England. I knew I was letting the Italians down by wearing a bright pink plastic poncho in a surreal urban-scape that includes yet another Botticelli fresco around any corner but there is room for the prosaic in Florence ... it's just that the Medici version of mundane sees a piece of Brunelleschi architecture becoming part of a fruit and veg shop.

Perhaps there is something to be said for authoritarian rule if we look at what the Medici’s achieved: rising early to get through the general business of the day, which mostly seemed to revolve around plotting, intrigue and murder, followed by luncheon involving live animals including from time to time small children, popping out of pies (the children weren't eaten apparently), and then on to a bit of poetry writing, painting and womanising. Although I guess if you were the poor person being taxed to death to pay for some of the Medici’s bad habits of war, gluttony and enemas you probably would have preferred a little less Renaissance Man and more Chartered Accountant. Medici women seem to have had a bad time of it too, forced to marry dubious cousins, have their children who then went on to marry more cousins in a complicated interconnected genealogical web, and then occasionally getting murdered when hubby preferred his mistress or one of the serving boys. Perhaps the only way to survive such profanities was to surround yourself with as much beauty as possible.

Between the eating and the making of children, of which the popes of the day seemed to have had plenty, the general mass killing of animals and humans, avoiding the plague and various fevers and pox, the jousting and general merriment of medieval Europe, there was the daily grind of keeping up with the shifting alliances between French, Spaniards, Germans, Venicians, Genoans, Napoliteans, the Duchy of Milan, the Pope and the Holy Roman Empire. Thank goodness we’ve solved all that by inventing the nation state whose borders we sanctify every time we swear allegiance to a law, pay taxes, get a visa or vote. I’m thinking the Medicis would be rather proud of the illusion and Lampedusa had it right when he wrote that some things change so that everything can remain the same (Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, ‘The Leopard’).