As he left the chapel, abandoning the couple to Masaccio's genius, he wondered whether his antagonism toward them owed itself to their interruption of his experience, or whether the work itself had somehow unleashed it in him.
THEY LEFT FLORENCE THROUGH THE PORTA ROMANA, heading south to Galluzzo, where they wound their way up into the hills past a sprawling Carthusian monastery.
The climbing road was flanked by olive groves, neat rows of trees laid out in terraces, their foliage flashing silver in the sunlight. Vineyards and stands of umbrella pines studded the hillside. Every so often, an avenue of dark cypresses indicated a track leading to some isolated farmhouse, which invariably was also guarded by a small cohort of the tall, tapering conifers. Apart from the tarmac road along which they were traveling, there was little to suggest the passing centuries had wrought any meaningful change on the tapestried landscape.
Adam lounged in his seat, taking in the view, the cooling breeze from the open window washing over him, ruffling his hair. The taxi driver was still talking nineteen to the dozen despite Adam's earlier confession that most of the words were lost on him. Every now and then Adam would catch the man's eye in the rearview mirror and grunt and nod his assent—an arrangement that seemed to work to the complete satisfaction of both parties.
When the road leveled out, he turned and peered through the rear window, searching for a glimpse of Florence. The city was lost to view behind the tumble of hills rolling in from the south. Somehow it seemed appropriate; she was hiding herself, even now.
All morning he had walked her streets, the stone chasms hacked into her, gridlike. Her buildings were no more welcoming—the palaces of rusticated stone, modeled on fortresses (or so it seemed); the churches with their unadorned exteriors, many sheathed in black and white marble; the museums housed in all manner of forbidding structures. And yet, behind those austere facades lay any number of riches.
Adam had chosen carefully, almost mathematically, limited as he was by the short time at his disposal. There had been disappointments, acclaimed works which had left him feeling strangely indifferent. But as the taxi worked its way higher into the hills, he consoled himself with the knowledge that it had been a first foray, a swift reconnaissance. There would be plenty of other opportunities to return.
San Casciano sat huddled on a high hill, dominating the surrounding countryside. Its commanding position had largely determined the course of its history, apparently, although the entry in Adam's guidebook made no mention of the last siege the town had been forced to endure. Even as the taxi approached, it was evident that the ancient walls girdling the town had not been constructed to withstand an assault by the kind of weaponry available to the Allies and the Germans.
These weren't the first scars of war Adam had witnessed. Even Florence, declared an 'open city' by both sides out of respect for her architectural significance, had suffered. As the Allies swept up from the south, the Germans had dug in, blowing all but one of the city's historic bridges. They may have spared the Ponte Vecchio, but this consideration came at a price. The buildings flanking the river in the vicinity of the bridge were mined, medieval towers and Renaissance palaces reduced to rubble, the field cleared for the forthcoming battle. As it was, the Allied troops had simply crossed the Arno elsewhere on makeshift Bailey bridges and swiftly liberated the town.
Years on, the wound inflicted right in the heart of the old city remained raw and open. If efforts had been made to restore those lost streets to their former glory, it was not evident. Modern structures with smooth faces and clean sharp lines stood out along the river's southern frontage, like teenagers in a queue of pensioners. The very best you could say was that the space had been filled.
In San Casciano that work was still going on. The town was pockmarked with the ruins of bomb-damaged buildings left to lie where they'd fallen. Impressively, Nature had reclaimed what she could in these plots. Young trees sprouted defiantly; shrubs had somehow detected enough moisture in piles of old stones to put down roots and prosper; weeds and ferns sprang from crevices in crumbling walls. The bland new concrete edifices that studded the historic center were further evidence of the severe pounding the town had taken.
The Pensione Amorini had been spared. One part of the ancient vine clinging to its scaling stucco facade had been trained over a pergola, which shaded a terrace out front, overflow for the bar and trattoria occupying the ground floor. Signora Fanelli was expecting him—he had phoned ahead from Florence—and she summoned her teenage son from a back room to help with Adam's bags.
