On the move

We moved quickly to make first contact with the Florentines we thought we knew a little - Michelangelo's David, Donatello's David, Botticelli's Venus, Dante's infernal friends... and every day brought opportunities to learn about others - Machiavelli, Galileo Galilei, Florence Nightingale, Franco Zeffirelli, Oriana Fallaci, not to mention the Tuscan neighbours - Leonardo of nearby Vinci, Boccacio of Certaldo, Puccini of Lucca...

But first to David, there's no way around it. The guy's got a day job and a night job, in fact he's all about town.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni's father wanted him to be a lawyer. But his son had a calling, and more than that he was a stubborn fellow. When he was told to do something, his usual reaction was to say no or simply ignore the order, no matter who was doing the commanding. Unless it was God. For it was God that directed his hand to create masterpieces. This is how Michelangelo is explained in Italy. And when you stand before David at the Galleria dell'Accademia, you believe this. Because not only is David so exquisite and exact and a wonder to behold, but more Michelangelo wonders surround you in the same hall, the "non-finito" Slaves or Prisoners - so unfinished were they that there is not one word to define them, other than divine, just as they are.

Enza our guide holds that Michelangelo never made sketches before sculpting. "He would go out to the quarry and spend a lot of time personally, carefully" selecting the singular block he wanted each time. When he was ready, "he touched the stone to feel what God was telling him" and only then would he start hewing the marble. Having already received special dispensation from the Church to study cadavers, his knowledge of anatomy would be celestially applied as he - there's no other way to put it - brought stone to life.

"He chiseled away... and the body came out," says Enza, making a thrusting movement with her whole torso to suggest how Mich's figures emerge from the stone, perfectly representing man's struggle "to free the spirit from matter."

So much more than a knee!

The night before David's big reveal, Mich took his father to an isolated part of the Duomo courtyard for a first glimpse. Several years in the making, no one had seen the work up until that point, especially not those who had commissioned it. Under the cloak of darkness and secrecy, the artist led his father to the 5-metre, 6-ton wonder and tugged the mantle. His father platzed mit naches as they would say in my family, melted with pride and admiration. He finally understood that his son was Michelangelo. It was 1504. The master was still in his 20s.

The official launch the next day was breathtaking, and breath-stopping. Gasps could be heard as the mantle fell. More wine than was ordered from the caterers had to be hurriedly brought in to temper the reactions. This was no Biblical David. For one thing, where's Goliath? For another, he's naked, which very quickly spotlighted the fact that this David was not circumcised. You know where to go to delve further into these and other David-related subjects [the disproportionate size of all his extremities, etc.] but there is one possible interpretation I keep returning to: Michelangelo, with his dogged independence and God-given skill, created this figure to make the viewer think. This hunk of marble represents many things, youthful strength and beauty, contemporary politics, Renaissance aesthetics, Greek art and much more. It's been almost 500 years and the discussion over the meaning of David is far from over.

What we do know for sure is that David is a beau ideal.

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In the following weeks, colours and temperatures changed, and we moved around. Family and friends dropped in, and with them we experienced San Gimignano, Siena, the Venice Biennale, then Milan for work, Parma, Modena and Bologna for more fun.

The next sentences should be filled with descriptions of our adventures - the best tower-top view, the best azienda, the best gondola, the best design studio, the best duomo, the best pizza. Nope. The common denominator of this period are little tormentors - mosquitoes. Who knew that le zanzare are a permanent fixture of this country? According to the internet, lots of people did, just not us.

AccuWeather has a "localized Mosquito weather forecast, provid[ing] you with the tailored weather forecast that you need to plan your day's activities." Another website states that "Smartphones are being used to combat the dreaded mosquito in Italy, with a new app that tracks the location of the blood-sucking pests." And as if Italian mozzies weren't enough, it appears that the Japanese mosquito and its Korean counterpart have invaded these parts of late. Group tours for Asian bugs because the euro is low? An ongoing international course in Design for Mosquitoes?

There were nights when we thought it might be better to be David - made of cool, smooth marble.

Still, Italia.

100% durum wheat - every bit

Giving new meaning to 'blue cheese'

O' Tuscany!

Venice: For years I had said that I want to take the boys there before it slips into the sea. Just a couple of weeks after our dreamy few days there with Hili our amazing niece, who shared her knowledge of art with us at the Biennale and elsewhere, a state of emergency was declared as floods irreparably battered the city.

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Two chance meetings in this period deserve mention. They occurred in different cities. In one, I was having trouble finding the right subway train platform. A beautifully groomed young woman with hands deep in her trench coat pockets and just the right shoulder bag accessorizing her classic look asked if I needed help. Leading me to the right place, we chatted, both strangers in a strange land. Where are you from, I asked. Saudi Arabia, and you? Israel. There was a pause, definitely, and then the conversation continued: she was interning at a high-powered firm in Italy. Her mother was not so happy about it. She had cringed at the idea of her daughter going to university at all, let alone take on a job in a foreign country, yet here she was, an ambitious professional woman in a mostly man's world, and with her father's support. But she was young and a little lonely, perhaps even a tad afraid. I told her that just from the few minutes I had known her it was clear that she was going to achieve anything she wanted in life, and to trust her instincts, they are working for her.

One stop before hers, she asked me how long I was staying in town and suggested that we might meet again to continue the conversation. I felt that she missed home and just wanted someone to listen to her for a bit; I knew that feeling exactly, having experienced it at her age. It could have been an opportunity for us both, but I was moving on.

Then elsewhere, Yehouda and I pulled up chairs at a cafe on a cold day and a peppy waitress approached. She heard us talking in a language that was not English, French or Chinese and asked where we were from. "Really? Israel? Then I love you! I am from Iran and you should know that I cannot stand what my government is doing or how it thinks. I am so happy to meet Israelis to be able to tell them that. And actually you are the first ones I have ever met!" We told her that we felt exactly the same, that we also believe there is a disconnect between the government and what many people want. That encounter ended in spontaneous hugs.

These two random interactions meant something. In a world that is perhaps as insane as it always was, but swiftly changing technologies bring the insanity right into our faces, we are all just people who want to love life, and to make a connection based only on that. Other people are not the enemy, politics and greed for power are.

And yet, such is our world that I have decided not to say in which cities these wonderful moments occurred out of concern that it will be too easy to identify these young vibrant women, who just by being themselves I feel sure will change the world, their own and, dominoes willing, ours.