Howdy folks. Right now I am looking at David. In fact, I have been looking at David all day today, staring out past me in shop windows, on postcards, on aprons, lighters and notepads. I have seen David`s privates on boxer shorts, and cigarette rolling papers. His face stares at me from the screen saver on this computer. Yes, my friends, we are in Florence, Italy, home of MICHAELANGELO`S DAVID FOR CHRISSAKES. We arrived last night *Tuesday* from Venice, and have spent the day wandering among the massive tributes to humanity and hubris so eloquently devised by Cosimo de Medici and others during the sixteenth century's Renaissance. We bypassed the Duomo, one of the largest churches in the world, in order to catch the Palazzio Veccio, or the old palace, where the Medici muscled into being the incredible dynasty of culture and learning now recognized as the culmination of the Italian Renaissance. And it is indeed incredible. The Palazzio Vecchio was the seat of Florentine power, which Cosimo decided to make his residence in the 1530s. And because he would brook no ambiguity as to who was in fact the head honcho around Florence, he expanded the palace and filled it to the gills with the most beautiful sculpture, woodwork and painting of the day. Michaelangelo, Titian, de Rossi, Ghiberti, etc were de rigeur. Every room is astounding.

After wandering among the labyrinthine palace wings and taking a really cool tour of all the secret passages various family members had built into the place, Debbie and I headed next door to the Ulfuzzi museum, where Botticelli's famous Birth of Venus can be found surrounded by hundreds of chattering Japanese students. The piece is really amazing, once you fighht your way close enough to it and sidle your way into a group that has paid for a guided tour in English. You learn that the painting, which is huge, is not famous just because you see it in art books. No, it has history and meaning! (I really heard one tour guide say this) The picture's importance, I learned eventually, comes from the fact that it was one of the first major pieces painted around this period that was, well, not a depiction of the Vigin Mary and the Child. I'm exaggerating only slightly; nearly all major art produced up to this time was religious, which both Debbie and I can attest to, having seen more Virgin and Child paintings in Venice and Florence to last several lifetimes. The painting heralded, in sumptuous beauty, the embracing of ancient Greek and Roman culture, which was to pave the road for the big bright caravan called Humanism, which we're still riding in.

This is good stuff! There it was right before me, one of the most famous images in the world. And it made sense.

So now the sun is setting over Florence, setting the orange-tiled roofs afire with light, and the city creeps slowly another day into history. As she has for nearly three thousand years. Debbie is off doing some laundry (bless her beautiful soul), and later we'll go check out some markets and have some rigotello and chianti. I'll try and post some pictures but I'm not making any guarantees. Hope all's well with everybody. Ciao.

David was really cool, by the way.