I saw it approaching as if it were going to slip between the tower and the dome of the duomo.<br> Even though I have meandered through the streets of Florence for years, I never cease to be perplexed by the strange mixture of modernity and antiquity. What a bizarre place, where people are frantically preserving their history, restoring every bit of ancient rubble. I imagined paintings, relentlessly restored and with each restoration there were small distortions. Several restorations later the painting barely resembled what it had been originally. Two years ago, a young art historian, known for her restoration
work, was arrested for purposely altering the Giotto frescos in Santa Croce. She disliked the almond shaped eyes (a well known characteristic of Giotto's painting), and widened them by dissolving a bit of the paint.<P>
A museum exists in Florence that resembles a wax museum. It contains the bodies of several dead masters which have been filled with formaldehyde and then shellacked. Each master resides in a room furnished with his belongings and tools characteristic of his trade. They are sitting, standing, grasping a tool, poised, brows furrowed, about to finish a great work. Their brains are housed in a seperate room, one alongside the other in glass, canopic-like vessels. It is overwhelming to be in a room that contains such an obscene amount of genius. Usually I place my hand over the inscription underneath the vessel
and try to determine who it belonged to. I always feel intimidated when I leave.