“Never been better.”
“Now, I know something is wrong,” he says on a sigh.
“Ilovethat place.” Toni now has her hand in the crook of Piero’s arm, and she leads him away, all the while Renzo is watching them, baffled.
It takes a minute, but then Alba and I are all alone in the hallway in front of our father’s office.
“Well,” she says waving a hand to fan herself, “that had the potential to blow up fifteen different ways.”
“Renzo and Toni are not sleeping together, are they?” I whisper.
“She’d have told me if that happened.” Alba puts her palms up. “I think.”
“He’s too old for her.”
“He’s hot, though.”
I groan. “Cristo, Alba, you need to get laid, you’re sex starved.”
“Tell me about it.” She looks at her watch. “I have a meeting. You’ll be okay on your own?”
“No, I’m going to get lost in this big Palazzo and the big bad city of Florence,” I throw back at her. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
She scoffs at me and leaves.
I look around me and realize I have absolutely nothing to do.
Lucia is managing things at Pietra Alta because I took today and the weekend off. I do have a call with the winemakers to help out Renzo, but that’s just thirty minutes in two hours, and I can take it from anywhere.
A slow smile curves my lips.
A whole afternoon—just for me.
Delicious.
I step out of the Palazzo’s cavernous entrance and let Florence envelop me.
The narrow lanes glint with afternoon sun; the walls ofhoneyed sandstone radiate warmth. I taste espresso in the air—bitter, sharp—and the yeasty perfume of fresh bread.
My footsteps echo past shuttered cafés and old stone fountains where tourists lean and sigh.
I walk without haste, winding until I arrive where I always do when I need to find myself again.
The Uffizi.
A small nod to the guard at the gate, a discreet flash of my Alighieri pass, and I slip inside—no queue, no waiting. My family’s name is etched into this museum's history. Each generation of Alighieri has gifted art to the museum to cement our name in Florence’s cultural spine.
Filippino Lippi’sAdoration of the Magiis Papà’s contribution. Small by Renaissance standards, almost modest. It hangs in one of the quieter rooms, often overlooked by tourists who rush toward Botticelli and Leonardo. The label notes the Alighieri bequest. Papà loves that footnote more than the painting itself. Alighieri men love to donate art that depicts devotion—so long as they’re not the ones kneeling.
The scene is crowded but intimate. The Virgin sits slightly elevated, not distant, just centered. The Magi kneel—not in theatrical submission, but in contemplation. Behind them, the landscape stretches into pale Tuscan hills, the light soft and almost forgiving.
What I love most is not the gold or the procession, it’s the faces. Lippi painted recognition into them. The moment when someone sees something sacred and understands it. The varnish has deepened the blues and reds over time, but the tenderness remains intact.
I walk the grand hallways where shafts of pale light dance across oak floors polished by centuries of feet.
I drift down the grand gallery, no map in hand, following the pull of brushstrokes and color. These paintings have survived wars and plagues, the greed of princes, the pride ofpatriarchs. Each canvas a testament to endurance—eternity painted in pigment.
I stop, as I always do, at Caravaggio’sMedusa.
