From a Book to Firenze

The Stream of Consciousness and Memory

The Tomb of Guiliano di Medici

I have just returned from the Library. I went there to collect the last ordered Christmas reading book. There are now 6 individual books together with an anthology of Ursula Le Guin’s Hainish novels. The Hainish novellas and my other volumes of Le Guin’s writings will await attention later next year.

This year has been successful from a reading point of view. 83 books to date and the year has just over a week to go so I should add to the list. And list there is – an Excel spreadsheet of books read as well as books owned, as well as my Tolkien collection, as well as CDs and DVDs and other assorted paraphernalia. So if someone asks me if I would like to have a book as a gift or whether or not I have read a book the answer is quickly to hand.

The reading environment is essential and my devouring appetite for recreational holiday reading developed whilst at University and in practice. Reading cases, articles, submissions, law texts, law review articles was all very well and involved a focused enquiry but not really the stuff that allowed the mind to roam free which is what good writing allows. I emphasise writing rather than literature and I really do prefer the “mind roaming free” type of writing. I tend to gag at the holiday recommendations that appear in newspapers and dare I say it that the Listener has the most incomprehensible and off-putting summer reading list imaginable.

The summer reading has developed over the years. The correct chair has been located. A table beside it at the right height for a coffee or a cold drink. The sun blazing in from the East, the reserve and beyond it the ocean and then about 1:00 pm the shift to the west facing back porch. This ritual can be followed even when it is raining because the locations are sheltered.

One of the books is a revisit – to see if it has stood the test of time. Irving Stone’s biographical novel The Agony and the Ecstasy about the life and times of Michelangelo Buonarotti.

I had watched a three part dramatized doco – The Renaissance – Blood and Beauty – which covers Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael. Charles Dance was Michelangelo as narrator – a cantankerous Michelangelo, admittedly but the attitude developed from Michelangelo’s own writings so it was an interpretative reading.

The series was excellent. It was on Arts but I missed an episode or two but with the help of a VPN managed to catch the whole series on PBS.

The show was as much about Florence as it was the artists and I recalled something of a family tradition that grew up around that city.

My father went there in the early 1960’s and came home with photos not of the Duomo or yet the “David” but of the tomb of Guiliano de Medici who was murdered in the chancel of the Duomo at Easter – 26 April 1478. Both Lorenzo and Guiliano were the targets of the assassination put together by the Pazzi family. Lorenzo escape and his vengeance was swift and terrible. The final vengeance of Michael Corleone in Godfather I has a centuries old history – but then Octavian’s pursuit of the murderer’s of Caesar, brilliantly documented in Peter Stothard’s The Last Assassin puts the Italian lust for vengeance into a context.

I digress.

Dad was ecstatic about the Cappelle Medicee at the Basilica of San Lorenzo, not far from the centre of Florence and the sculptures at Guiliano’s tomb – all executed by Michelangelo. The David is magnificent and monumental but you share the experience with the rest of the world. Dad loved Cappelle Medicee because he had the tomb to himself and was able to contemplate the execution and the glory and the beauty and he insisted that if I ever got to Florence by all means – the David and the Uffizi but make sure you get to the Cappelle Medicee.

Fast forward to 1981 and we were planning our trip to Europe to follow the Sydney Mastermind contest. Dad was planning on meeting us in Florence and one of the destinations was clear. But he left early – in April 1981 – and he neither saw the Mastermind thing and we missed him in Florence.

But we went to the Capelle Medicee and it was as he said. Away from the hustle and bustle of the Academia and only one or two people there.

And it was as he said – Magnifico

We returned to Florence with my son in 2009 and once again made our way to Capelle Medici and once again the people were few and far between and the place was cool and quiet and astounding, breathtaking so extraordinarily wonderful with a number of Michelangelo sculptures in the one place. It is perhaps the single biggest collection of Michelangelo sculptures in one place and while David is a triumph and Pieta is achingly beautiful to be in a place where there is a collection of sculptures is beyond imagining.

But Florence has its own little treasures. Walking around the city is like going back to the Renaissance and there are examples of street theatre. The young lady in the photo below was fluid and glorious and the appreciative and rather diminutive audience dropped a coin for her.

And so to 2026 and my grandsons are to visit Florence. I have seen the itinerary. Capelle Medicee is not on it. The Academia is there as is the Ufizi but no Capelle Medicee.

We have pored over a map of Florence. Everything is well located. To peel off for an hour to see the Michelangelo collection would not be a problem if handled correctly. Euros have been set aside for the entry fee.

This is – as they might say in Italy – a family matter.

In closing may I take this opportunity to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thank you for reading my pieces. Thank you for your comments – always appreciated. Thank you those who have given me a coffee or a paid subscription. I am very grateful. So thank you.

I have published 371 articles since this Substack started on 14 April 2023. The time seems to have flown by. My notebook has plenty of entries. There are research and resources scattered through my writing folder.

The Halflings View will be a starting point for issues that may find their way to the Listener or the Herald or to Law News – if they continue to indulge me.

But to all of you – thanks for coming along on the ride. I have one final post ere year’s end but I will be away from the keyboard for a couple of weeks.

Ciao

The Tomb of Lorenzo di Medici