The hidden dangers of Florence’s masterpieces.
Florence is drenched in art. It is on every corner, down every cobbled street, in every piazza and palazzo. Never mind Tony Blair’s genteel “hand of history” on your shoulder. In this Tuscan city, history pulls you into her arms, kisses you passionately, then swings you around and around until your head spins.
For some people, this is more than a metaphor. The myriad masterpieces in Florence actually make them ill. Symptoms of “Florence Syndrome” include nausea, dizziness, fainting, panic attacks, hyperventilation, tachycardia, temporary amnesia and disorientation. Some hallucinate. Some end up in hospital, literally overwhelmed by beauty.
Despite sounding…
They’re the influential civilization hardly anyone’s heard of. Time to redress the balance.
The Romans. Famous for their straight roads, underfloor central heating, emperors, gladiators, cities, togas… Ask who invented something ancient and clever, and a spectral Roman arm will rise up from the annals of history and stake claim.
But none of the above ideas are Roman, even though they want us to believe they are. They have tried to erase the real founding civilization from getting the credit they deserve.
Well, enough is enough.
Step forward Etruscans. It’s your well-deserved turn in the spotlight.
Etruria
The Etruscans were an ancient and powerful pre-Roman civilization who lived in Etruria. If Italy is a…
How a retired foresight scientist’s unusual approach has led to rethinking Troy’s location and the motives for the Trojan War.
When award-winning Dutch innovation expert Henk van Oosten retired, he wasn’t interested in taking up golf or bridge. Instead, he decided to solve one of ancient history’s most enduring mysteries.
Using skills acquired over many years in foresight studies and his experience as a sailor, he took on the knotty topic of the Trojan War and Odysseus’ travels. Were they just myths conjured up by Homer to entertain his Greek audience or could they be something more?
He treated the search as if it were one of his innovation projects, using wide spectrum thinking and knowledge from diverse fields. And…
90 days ago I watched with disbelief as Florence shut down. Here’s what my friends and I think now we’ve emerged from lockdown.
On February 24 this year, I wrote one of the first articles about the Coronavirus as I watched dramatic scenes unfold from our apartment in the historic centre of Florence, Italy. In front of my eyes the city closed down, changing from a bustling, vibrant, tourist-filled Tuscan icon to a ghost town in a matter of days. On February 24 the death toll in the whole of Italy was two souls. It was pre-lockdown, but I knew from the unprecedented events I was witnessing that something very big was happening.
Apart from describing the situation on the ground from what…
Could the answer to one of the world’s greatest mysteries have been under our noses all this time?
The legendary lost island of Atlantis. Everyone’s heard of it and everyone’s got an opinion.
Was it just an elaborate fiction given to us by the Greek philosopher Plato in 360 B.C.? Or was it a “mother culture”, a real place with an advanced Stone Age civilization?
The answer is a bit of both.
The legend of Atlantis was passed down by word of mouth thousands of years before Plato first heard it, so it’s hardly surprising that some details got distorted over time. Truth became history, history became legend and legend became myth. Plato’s account is exaggerated, contains historical…
They’re not even real doors either!
I dallied with sharp vision but believe me, blurry is best
I once mistook a red tractor for a flowering shrub. “Look! A rhododendron in the middle of all that corn!” I shrieked happily to my friends. “Nature is so amazing!”
Their understandable response was to suggest I had my eyes tested.
I did.
Seeing clearly was helpful. But it also made life less blurrily beautiful. Freed of its task of turning indistinct trashcans, stones and shopping carts into fairies, magical objects and random flowers my brain started delivering life as it really was, with all its sharp angles and hard edges.
Fantasy Versus Reality
I hated my glasses with a vengeance. I still…
Coronavirus lockdown’s clear skies and fresh air will soon disappear in a puff of smoke. To make progress on pollution we need practical, game-changing ideas. Three companies have already started.
It’s time for some blue sky thinking about air pollution.
What if we stopped trying to put the wispy genie back in its bottle? Stopped trying to cut pollution and instead accepted it as inevitable? What if we considered salvaging it instead of eliminating it?
American futurist R. Buckmaster Fuller wrote: “Pollution is nothing but resources we’re not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we’ve been ignorant of their value.”
Now there’s a revolutionary thought. Pollution as a valuable resource.
Once Lockdown Ends
It would be wonderful if the swift action that closed the world down in four weeks could be applied…
Why more facts won’t help, and where to look instead
We’re having “virtual aperitivi”: me, my husband and two friends chatting over Zoom in four separate locations in Italy. My husband, a chef as well as a vicar, has actually made mini bread, cheese and olive canapes which he holds up to the screen. We reach out to take a pretend portion, then toast each other with our assorted drinks.
Inevitably, we start to talk about the virus and how we are coping. We take turns to explain what it’s like where we are. It’s my go. “Well, even though the death rate nationally is 9.9 percent, with Lombardy at…
Our liberty is curtailed. We are fear-filled and stir-crazy. Little wonder we want our old lives back. But that would be a mistake.
Fast forward a year. You’re watching the Hollywood movie of the Coronavirus pandemic. The troubled but charismatic detective has “followed the money” and is about to reveal the culprit. A woman in green is standing with her back to the camera. “OK, you had me fooled for a while, but now the game’s up, it’s all over,” says the detective, who is fond of a cliché or two.
“Oh, now that’s where you’re wrong” says the figure quietly, as the camera slowly pans round to reveal her identity to a collective gasp from the movie theatre audience. …
Fiona Cameron Lister
British Writer, Editor in Tuscany, Italy. Topics: Nature, Ancient History, Spirituality. https://www.twinclianpress.com twitter: @writerinitaly
