The Life of the Medicis: An Escape to Florence

It was a long, hot July in Italy. We had been riding in beige vans for three weeks, and somehow I'd gotten stuck in the middle seat in the back the past nine times out of 10. Our fingers were greasy, our rations of Nutella nearly gone. All of our tapes sounded old--even Garth Brooks, even Madonna. If I saw another Novotel, that sterile European hotel chain, I thought I would scream.

We were approaching Florence, the city of Michelangelo, of Giotto, of Raphael. The Uffizi, a Florence art gallery, had been bombed the month before and we were somewhat apprehensive.

"Florence will be like a spiritual experience." the art history teacher leading our tour promised us, and we wanted to believe him.

After 10 hours of traveling in the van with eight other people on my school's tour of Europe, I was certainly open to spiritual intervention.

But the two police cars blocking the street leading to our hotel were not exactly what I had in mind. I persisted. After all, what was another hour in this land of full-bodied wine and Tuscan food?

After our leader spoke to the police officers in animated Italian, our van drivers managed to back 50 feet down the street as passers-by fled for their lives and cursed at us in rapid-fire Italian.

When we finally navigated our way into the hotel, dragging our luggage on the asphalt on the way, we encountered an unfriendly desk attendant. She wouldn't talk to us until our leader came in from parking the van.

And so I let my mind wander, looking at the old-fashioned telephone booths and the notices in the lobby.

Amid the signs about breakfast hours and dry-cleaning, I spotted a concert notice: Zubin Mehta, the next night, in front of the Uffizi, to commemorate the bombing the month before.

The name sounded familiar--I had a few of his recordings--and I was certainly game for a classical music concert in Italy to soothe the dust of some long days on the road. While eating gnocchi and sipping red wine at the trattoria we found for dinner, I proposed the idea to a few friends.

After a restless night's sleep in our non-airconditioned corner room and a restless day's wandering on the cobblestones on which Dante walked, we were ready for music.

We cleaned our pockets of money, identification and anything else that might appeal to the Florentine gypsies in the plaza, remembering the gypsies we had seen that morning--who bit people.

As we walked over, we merged with hundreds of people, becoming part of a crowd that didn't speak our language. I hadn't thought it would be that crowded.

The seats directly in front of the orchestra had been taken long ago and so we stood. My six-foot-tall friend took turns lifting us into the air to see the roses, the statues and the music stands that lined the stage.

There must have been 30,000 people in thesquare, pressed against each other in the waningItalian heat, waiting for the music to stir theirmemories.

Half an hour late, as dusk came to the PiazzoVecchio, Zubin Mehta appeared on stage and theentire crowd applauded. He gave a brief speech inItalian which some friendly men next to ustranslated.

The concert, he said, was designed to give backthe art of Florence to the people of Florence.Nods and smiles and sighs swept through the massof people.

Mehta announced the program, of which I caught"Beethoven" and "Verdi" and little else. Theentire audience was absolutely silent as the musicbegan.

The first notes of "The Magic Flute" piercedthe evening and I noticed that the turrets on thePalazzo Vecchio flickered with flames. I couldn'tstop looking at them. If I didn't look down at thenatives clothed in halter tops and shorts, I couldalmost imagine myself in medieval times.

Wagner came next, a typical Wagner piece withbombast, angst and verve, and then a Verdi piecewhich I didn't know then but searched forafterward.

It's a sad melody, slow chorus from Verdi'sNabucco, part of which translates roughlyas "Oh, my country, so lovely and so lost! Oh,remembrance, so beautiful and so despairing!"

I didn't understand then why old men wereweeping as the chorus sang, for I didn't know thewords. I understood later.

Until the last piece, I stood there, hemmed inby the crowd, intermittently jumping up to try tosee the great Mehta in action. His hands wavedwildly, his body swayed at times to the music. Ihad the feeling that I was a part of somethingthat would never happen again.

And yet the significance didn't really hit meuntil the first four rolling notes of the lastpart of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony came driftingover the air. And then they repeated. Andrepeated. And I, somewhat hat to my surprise,started crying.

It sounds sappy, but it just hit me that to bein the square in front of the Uffizi, watchingMehta conduct a concert of some of the best musicin the world--a concert symbolically returning tothe people of Florence the art that was rightfullytheirs--was something lucky and magical.

As the last few notes of the Fifth pulsedthrough the air, I returned to this world slowly,walking home quietly and pensively with myfriends. A few blocks from the hotel, we ran intoa few members of our group at an outdoor cafe.

They were drinking kahlua and beer, looking atpicture postcards. They were talking about longvan rides and Italian ice cream. The jukebox wasplaying Madonna.

I sat down, ordered a glass of wine and sippedit while staring at the jukebox. The jukeboxdidn't play Beethoven but somehow that seemed allright.

You have to return to this world sometimes,after all.Jefferson Packer