Monthly Archives: August 2007

The strangely scientific logo for the Scrovegni museum… It is very hard to look honestly at Giotto’s art after reading Richard Dawkins’ “The God Delusion”. It is not hard to let yourself immerse in the frescos of the Scrovegni chapel … Continue reading →

Last night it rained for eight seconds, which still briefly emptied the square. One brave couple sat it out. I asked Luca, a waiter, what the problem was. Why were there no umbrellas. “We don’t have a licence. And to … Continue reading →

“There is one speciall thing wanting in this citie, which made me not a little wonder; namely, that frequency of people which I observed in the other Italian cities. For I saw so few people here, that I thinke no … Continue reading →

After the first storm twenty minutes of pleasure: Ravel, Vivaldi and Bach outside the Palazzo Bo, empty streets suddenly fill, as if in reconnection with some other time when music was everywhere in the streets. The violins remind me of … Continue reading →

“There is one moral of all human tales;‘Tis but the same rehearsal of the past,First freedom, and then glory – when that failsWealth, vice, corruption, – barbarism is last.And History, with all her volumes vast,Hath but one page” Byron, Childe … Continue reading →

but Padua’s cafes are tough. Perhaps all the nice abstract Paduas will come tomorrow with Giotto..and God via Dawkins My observations of Padua …”It hath five market places that are continually exceeding well furnished with manner of necessary things. Many … Continue reading →

Five hundred and sixteen years ago, at the same time that the University of Padua was enriched by the arrival to the Chair of Mathematics of one Galileo Galilei, a man who would be one of the most controversial and … Continue reading →