I was born and brought up in Florence. To live there in itself an artistic education. I wasn't born in a palace with Raphael's paintings on the walls as some of my friends were, but in those days the message of the past and the taste for beauty could be felt everywhere in the city. The first pieces of furniture I touched, crawling round the house, had been handed down through the family for centuries. There were paintings collected by my grandfather, and Della Robbia reliefs, reproductions if not originals, hanging over the doors. In Florence you do not have to go to school to learn about art and civilisation; it is all around you. I would wake up at 6.30 am. to go to school and open my window. We lived on the fifth floor with a view right across the red-tiled roofs of the town and there, right before me, was the dome of the cathedral. From that moment on wherever I went throughout the day I was surrounded by the heritage of our Renaissance. Florence is a quiet city, there is nothing flashy; there, everything is conceived according to the severe mathematics of beauty. It is not like Venice. Venice is spectacular, full of picturesque things but very little of real quality. It's not serious; it's Luna Park. But Florence is stern and pure. There are no compromises or digressions in Florence. There are no bright colours, no crimson or gold, just the grey and yellow of the stone, the white marble, the olive groves and the dark cypress trees.
