The Spectator’s Notes | 5 November 2005

After a week in Florence, astonished all over again by the unsurpassed beauty of its painting and architecture from 1350–1550, I wonder about the odd mixture of features which characterises a high civilisation. This includes:

1. A respect for what appears to be ‘useless’. Greek was barely known in the city until a teacher called Manuel Chrysoloras arrived at the university in the late 14th century, and even Latin was not commonplace. Someone somehow decided that learning what appeared to be dead would make people more alive. High learning was an innate good. This appears not to fit with …

2. Vulgarity. The unbelievable effusion of artistic display in Florence at that period was, among other things, a colossal form of showing off. In a celestial version of buying a charity plate in New York to sit next to the President of the United States, you could get yourself placed next to the Virgin Mary in a great painting if you had the power and money.