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When
you arrive at the long queue outside the Accademia in Florence, just keep on
walking. (After all, there’s a perfectly good copy of the Michelangelo
David in the Piazza della Signoria just down the road.) Cross the Piazza
di San Marco and join the much shorter queue at the Museo San Marco, once
the monastery of San Marco.
This really is an extraordinary place. Savanarola brooded here on
the sins of the world, as he saw them. In the church next door, the
Piagnoni trembled as he warned of the impending apocalypse. Climb the stairs to the monks’ cells, and
there ahead of you is perhaps the greatest image of the Annunciation ever
painted – this fresco by Fra Angelico. Climbing those stairs
is one of the most moving experiences in all art.
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