beren andres

Years ago, there was a boy who wanted to know what it would be like to climb to the top of Giotto's Campanile alongside Florence's Duomo. He'd seen it several times on trips to the Uffizi, where his father was a restoration consultant for one of Botticelli's large allegorical paintings. Finally, when he was 11, his father asked him if he would like to go up to the top of the tower. He was surprised and he asked his father "How did you know I wanted to go?" His father answered, "Well, you never ask but that's what you always look at whenever we're here." So they both climbed the 414 steps to the observation level, where now he could see the entire city in a 360 degree panorama. At this height above Florence he soon had a startling realization -- he'd been up here a very long time ago, so this perspective was very familiar. But he said nothing. He knew better than to tell his father about this.