A few weeks ago, I had a little scamper around Palazzo Davanzati, a 14th-century merchant's house in Florence.
The Davanzatis bought the house in 1580 from a family of wealthy wool merchants who'd had it built 200 years earlier.
On the first floor is the great hall, a gigantic room for business meetings with absurdly high ceilings. It makes Crispin Odey's old wood-panelled meeting room in Mayfair look like a council Portakabin.
I was struck by the
