Florence, 1482.
Florence looks like gold and smells like sulphur.
The building are massive, gorgeous and epic. They are made of glowing gilded stone and silver marble. Yet the smells - animal dung, human duste, rotting meat and vegetables left in the gutter from market - would make a tanner blanch. In fact, the city is a mass of contradictions. It is build for giants, with the huge loggias, toothsome palaces and many pillars, yet the Forentines are a tiny people and scuttle around the plinths like brighly dressed pygmies.