Michelangelo at Midlife: Chasing the Tomb of Julius II

By Gene Openshaw

A traveler's quest for Michelangelo's most troubled work of art--the notorious Tomb of Pope Julius II.

 

"A delightful combination of art history and light drama." -- Kirkus Reviews

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Miner of Light Press
• Release date: Oct 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9798218291990

Gene Openshaw

Gene Openshaw has written more than a dozen books and TV shows with travel guru Rick Steves. Their book "Europe's Top 100 Masterpieces" highlights classic works of art. "Europe 101: History and Art for the Traveler" is still going strong after three decades. Their guidebooks--to Paris, Rome, London, and more--are some of the best-selling guides in the English language. For television, Gene has co-authored the popular PBS documentaries "The Story of Fascism" and the ambitious multi-part series "Art of Europe." Interviews with Gene can often be heard on NPR radio. As a composer, Gene has written an opera called "Matter."

Book preview

Tomb diagrams and maps

David C. Hoerlein

Cover and interior design

Sandra Hundacker

Editor

Risa Laib

© 2023 by Gene Openshaw

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Florence—The Tomb Begins (1475-1505)

Carrara—Dreaming Big (1505)

Bologna—Detours (1506-1512)

Paris Dreams and Louvre Slaves (1513-1516)

Lost in Carrara (1516-1519)

A Bitter Rejection (1520)

Resuming the Tomb—The Prisoners (1521-1523)

Lawyers, Tombs, and Money (1523-1525)

Michelangelo at Midlife

Trapped in the Tomb (1526-1529)

Venice—Reflections (1529)

Reconnecting with Florence (1530-1532)

The Tomb Reborn (1532-1533)

Leaving Florence (1533-1534)

A New Life in Rome (1534-1536)

The Tomb Turns Dark (1537-1541)

Enough—Finishing the Tomb (1542-1545)

Vatican Museum—The Arc of Tragedy

An Unsettling New World (1545-1546)

The Tomb in San Pietro in Vincoli

Tangled in the Tomb

Searching for the Tomb in St. Peter’s

Dammit, I will have my epiphany

Moving On—Life after the Tomb (1548-1564)

Epilogue

Sam is fictional

but the Tomb is real

and I’ve done my best to tell its troubled story

—The Author

FLORENCE—THE TOMB BEGINS

(1475-1505)

Meet me at David’s butt, Burke said.

And there he is at the far end of the gallery, herding his group of 25 Americans around the colossal statue of David.

Michelangelo depicted the shepherd boy, Burke is telling the group, gazing across the field, sizing up the enemy, and saying to himself, ‘I can take this guy!’

The group laughs.

I mean, just look at him, says Burke, waving his beefy arm, seventeen feet of pure white marble from the Carrara quarries. He’s monumental, he’s balanced, he’s … he’s a buck naked hunk.

They laugh again.

I take a seat on the walnut bench. I’m jet-lagged and bleary after my 22-hour ordeal from the States. As I listen, I can see the women of the group looking at David—and at Burke—with shining eyes and parted lips.

Most of all, says Burke, David is an eternal symbol of youth, a man in his prime. Just like young Michelangelo was when he sculpted him. On the other hand, he says, striding into the gallery’s nave, take a look at these.

Burke points out four lumpy statues lining the nave. These are Michelangelo’s Prisoners, he says, carved twenty years later. They were just one part of a huge project—the Tomb of Pope Julius II. Michelangelo began it with grand ambitions, but then things went…well, kinda swervy-like, and his magnum opus turned into a magnum pain-in-the-ass.

Burke explains that the ill-fated Tomb project became a 40-year odyssey of ups and downs that nearly drove Michelangelo—(and here Burke slits his own throat)—to suicide.

Ya gotta wonder, he says, running a hand through his tangled mass of hair, How did Michelangelo get from this—the magnificent David—to these miserable dudes? If David symbolizes a man in his prime, these Prisoners must be, well, I guess they’re his midlife crisis.

The group finds this especially funny. Burke’s killin’ ‘em.

An epic, 40-year-long midlife crisis, says Burke. Some men get a red sports car and a trophy wife. Michelangelo built a Tomb.

The group laughs again, and Burke starts wrapping things up.

Okay, listen up everybody: Our Tasty Tuscan Feast starts in an hour. So spend a little more time with David, soak up the Renaissance ambience, use the toilets, and we’ll all meet outside in twenty minutes.

As the group disperses, Burke spots me and gives me a crushing hug.

Sam! he says. "Sammy-me-boy! Ciao, ciao! Ciao bello! It’s brilliant, absolutely br-r-rilliant to see you!"

Yes, it’s good to see you too, my friend.

"Ecco! he says, Look!" And he gestures toward several pretty women from the tour group.

Which of ‘em do you want? he says. I spy two. Two for you, two for me! and he laughs his fake-sounding but totally genuine he-man laugh.

Burke’s an idiot.

But he’s also a good friend, and we’ve been through a lot together.

I think it’s absolutely br-r-rilliant, he says again—you and me, back together again, leading a tour.

Right. Brilliant. It’s actually the last thing I want to be doing—co-guiding with Burke. I led Americans around Europe for years on my own, and now here I am co-guiding with my former assistant. But I’m desperate for a paying gig, and this was the best I could get. So I’ll do what I’m asked, put a smile on my face, and be a ray of fucking sunshine.

I can’t wait to introduce you to the group, says Burke, as we head for the exit. Hey, he says, his voice softening. Um, sorry to hear about the whole divorce thing. That sure came out of nowhere. I mean, what’s up with that shit, huh? I heard you’ve been crashing on Dev’s couch. That must be rough.

Especially for him, I joke.

Seriously, man, how you holding up?

Fine, I say.

Fine, I repeat to myself.

Listen, he says, pulling me aside. Sam… Can I tell you something? As a friend?

Michelangelo’s hometown, looking much as it did in his day.

Yes. In fact, please. Right now, I could most definitely use a kind word from a good friend.

Um, when was the last time you took a shower? I mean, you kind of, you know… stink.

Great. So here I am with my heart torn in two, blindsided by divorce papers, fleeing a messy situation with my emotional pants around my ankles. I’ve been haggling with lawyers, pleading with my wife, pining for my daughter, sweating out stress and toxins and fear. I’m wounded and confused and humiliated… and now I stink, too? Thank you, my old friend, thank you so much.

Here’s my key, says Burke. I’ll handle the group lunch. Go take a shower, do some laundry, there’s beer in the fridge. I’ll meet you at Bar Sesto.

I set off to Burke’s apartment, navigating by the red-and-white-ribbed dome of the Cathedral. I wind through back lanes clogged with dumpsters, rows of motor scooters, and cars half-parked on the sidewalks. The sun burns my jet-lagged eyes and gravity grabs my legs. I’m beat, I’m dazed—even kinda swervy-like, as Burke so elegantly said of Michelangelo.

And as I circle behind the Cathedral, where Michelangelo once had his studio, I can’t help but think of the young genius here, at the very moment his own world went swervy…

It was April, 1506, and Michelangelo Buonarroti was pacing the studio, amid dusty piles of tools and half-carved statues of restless saints and agonized martyrs. He was flailing in a tsunami of emotions—in his own words, overwhelmed.

Just days earlier, he’d been in Rome, at the top of the world. He had a prestigious gig sculpting a major project for the Pope himself—the Tomb of Pope Julius II.

Then, out of nowhere, things went sideways.

He’d gone to the Vatican Palace to chat with Julius, as usual, about the Tomb. He breezed through the Vatican’s frescoed halls like the VIP he was. But when he reached the door of Julius’s chambers…

"I’m sorry, signore, said the doorman, but the Holy Father will not see you."

Michelangelo explained that he had an appointment.

No, sir, said the doorman.

It’s about the Tomb. He’ll see me. Just tell Julius I’m here.

Michelangelo took a seat and waited, warming himself at the massive stone fireplace. He’d been working on the Tomb now for a solid year, and everything was going great… wasn’t it? He and Julius had even become more than colleagues, they were friends… right? On the other hand, it did seem that, lately, Julius had become a bit distant…

The doorman returned: The Holy Father will not see you.

But—there must be some mistake. The Pope expressly told me—

Another guard appeared.

This gentleman, said the doorman, will escort you to the exit.

Wait, what?

Michelangelo stood his ground, insisting that he be allowed to see the Pope. Things escalated. A crowd gathered. Voices were raised. Someone called security. Finally the guards grabbed Michelangelo roughly and started to drag him off.

A bishop who happened by asked, Don’t you know who this man is!?

I’m only following orders, said the guard, as they hauled Michelangelo away.

He didn’t go quietly.

You can tell the Pope, he shouted over his shoulder, "that if he ever wants to see me again, he can come find me!" And with that, Michelangelo was simply thrown out.

He stood there on St. Peter’s Square. He couldn’t process it. Seemingly out of the blue, and with no explanation, he’d been dismissed, insulted, and kicked to the curb. It was at that moment that he became overwhelmed—flooded with a toxic cocktail of emotions: anger, humiliation, confusion, fear. What just happened? What do I do now?

He ran.

He mounted up and galloped north from Rome. He rode through the night, trading horses every few miles, crossing and re-crossing the winding Tiber, until the umbrella pines of Rome became the pointy cypresses of Tuscany. He was headed home—to Florence. There he hoped to lick his wounds, sort things out, and leave the whole nasty affair behind him. He settled into his drafty studio, where he paced the floor. He stared at the statues, fiddled with his tools, ran the blur of events over in his mind, and asked himself again and again: What the hell just happened…?

Foosh!

A bicycle speeds past, almost knocking me over. The guy rides off, casually flicking his hand to his chin. I step aside to gather myself… and there I am—reflected in a store window.

My god, I look awful. Dark circles, haunted eyes—I’ve aged a year in a week. I’m shell-shocked, confused, raw… overwhelmed.

I carry on to Burke’s apartment, turning left at the fake David guarding City Hall. I walk a few more blocks, fumble with the key, and climb the narrow steps. The place is practically bare. I sit on the bed. I’m starving. There’s beer in the fridge like Burke said, but nothing else. I tear into a bag of Italian puffy snacks and stare out the window, across the red-tiled roofs.

I made it, I tell myself. I’m here.

That whole mess is 5,000 miles behind me. Now I can take a breath and plan my next step.

But as I look back over the last week, I can’t help but think: What the hell just happened? And how am I ever gonna piece it all back together again?

After a short nap and a strong macchiato, I start to feel halfway human. I head across town to meet Burke. My spirits rise when I take in the sights of Florence—the Florence I love: the soaring towers, the earthy smell of leather and horse-dung, the bustling hordes of visitors that come to enjoy Botticelli’s Venus, Ghiberti’s Doors, roast boar, and carafes of cheap sangiovese.

And everywhere I turn, I see reminders of Michelangelo. At City Hall, I can’t help but recall how his David first thrilled me—a clueless kid from the suburbs—on my first trip to Europe. In fact, as I think of it now, it was the epic beauty of Michelangelo’s works that inspired me to eventually pursue a life in the arts. Yes, Michelangelo my old friend, it was you who set me on this journey I’m on. And now I’m afraid you may have to help me find the path again.

Michelangelo’s boyhood home, where his improbable journey began.

I’ve arrived at a nondescript building marked with a plaque:

"Casa dove Michelangelo…"

This is the house where Michelangelo Buonarroti—sculptor of David, painter of the Sistine, renowned architect, esteemed poet, and Renaissance Man of ideas—began his journey.

Michelangelo’s boyhood home stands right in the thick of Florence, in a working-class neighborhood two blocks behind the Palazzo Vecchio. These days, it’s just another yellow building cluttered with drainpipes, TV cables, and spray-painted graffiti of a heart, a penis, and the word merde. Students on motorinos whiz by, housewives pull shopping totes, and a dog barks from inside a parked car. A most unlikely place to begin a career in the arts.

Michelangelo was only 10 when he first moved here from Florence’s outskirts. Because his mother died shortly after his birth, he’d been handed off to surrogate parents—humble blue-collar folk who worked the Settignano stone quarries. (The same quarries, Burke once told me, where kids today sneak off to smoke joints.) It took a full decade before Little Angel Michael was finally allowed to join his birth family here in town.

A line of school children skips by, belting out the age-old nursery rhyme about the "farfallina bella, the little butterfly who flies and flies and will not be stopped…"

… like little Michelangelo, it seems. Though he’d been raised to follow in his father’s footsteps as a petty bureaucrat, he instead spent his time daydreaming and sketching fantastic scenes of dragons and saints. One day, as he was doodling when he should have been studying, his father walked in. What the…?! Signor Buonarroti became so livid he attacked his own son and literally tried to beat the art out of him. But, like so many other obstinate young artists, Michelangelo would not give in.

I continue on, winding through the narrow lanes, pressing flat to let cars squeeze through. I power across the traffic-choked square by the train station, and duck into the Church of Santa Maria Novella.

It was here in these colorfully-frescoed chapels that stubborn Michelangelo was dumped by his exasperated father to earn his keep as an apprentice. The boy hauled lime, pulverized pigments, and laid plaster for Domenico Ghirlandaio as he painted Renaissance Florentines in their striped Romeo leotards and jeweled Juliet dresses. When Michelangelo was finally allowed to add a few brushstrokes of his own, the master became unnerved, saying: This boy knows more than I do.

Creations of a 13-year-old prodigy.

That’s when Michelangelo’s life took a Dickensian turn.

At 15, the prodigy was spotted by none other than the most famous man in Europe—Lorenzo the Magnificent—who invited him to live in the Medici Palace.

Suddenly, he was dining alongside princes and popes, as they debated politics, critiqued art, and laughed at dirty limericks. He attended classes in Plato and Dante alongside Lorenzo’s own son, a future pope. In the lush gardens, he took Sculpting 101 from Florentine masters, surrounded by thousand-year-old masterpieces.

Michelangelo soaked up the rough-and-tumble optimism of the Medici—the most progressive family in the most energetic city in Europe. His role model was Lorenzo, the ultimate Renaissance Man: poet, banker, horseman, swordsman, dandy, and lover of fine art and pretty ladies. Under the spell of the Medici, teenage Michelangelo’s personality began to take shape: curious, proud, mercurial, driven.

When he finished his first statue—of an old faun—Lorenzo teased him: If he’s really such an ‘old’ faun, why does he still have teeth? Michelangelo grabbed his chisel and pounded a tooth out, while Lorenzo just laughed.

When a classmate dissed one of his favorite artists, Michelangelo threw a punch and got punched back, leaving him to go through life with his nose forever bent out of joint.

When it snowed one winter, Michelangelo charmed everyone by sculpting a snowman in the courtyard. When summer came, he’d lie under the stars in the fragrant garden, while a lute player sang one of Lorenzo’s own madrigals—some bittersweet song about how it is to be young and in love, and how it all passes too soon, too soon…

My phone rings.

It’s Anabel!

I scramble to answer and nearly juggle the phone into a fountain.

But, no, it’s only Burke calling to say he’s running late.

Our tour bus is stuck on the ring road, he says. The driver needs some kind of document or voucher or—

The municipal permit, I say.

The what?

He needs the ten-digit code to drive into the city center, I tell him. If you don’t have it, Dev does. Do you want me to call him?

No, no, no, says Burke, I’m all over it. Thanks, Sammy. I knew you’d know what to do. You da man, the Renaissance Dude! and he hangs up.

The Renaissance Dude. Right.

I stop for a stand-up espresso and a day-old cornetto. The Renaissance Dude! It makes me wince, thinking back on a time when, in fact, I did think of myself as some kind of Renaissance Man…

… or rather, a Renaissance Boy like young Michelangelo, born into the same kind of humble circumstances—a painfully-shy kid with an oversized brain who’d somehow sprouted from the working-class loins of uncomprehending parents. Who dutifully followed his prescribed path, until—out of nowhere—he was suddenly gifted a scholarship to an elite university, and could dream of something more.

A budding Renaissance Boy who devoured it all: Chemistry, to study life from the atom up. Astronomy, to learn our place in space, and History for our place in time. Music and Literature, to see how the immaterial mystery can manifest itself in the material world. And finally, a degree in the Philosophy of Religion—hoping it would let him view the world from the widest perspective of all, charged with a spiritual fervor.

Then he stuffed it all in a rucksack and set out, confident that, whatever the path—whether poet, plumber, artist, or cook—life was a journey of discovery…

It was the kind of journey Michelangelo set out on, when he finally left the bosom of the Medici. He roamed across Italy, taking whatever work came his way.

With each statue, he explored a new style, as he searched for his artistic voice. His Battle of Centaurs was a tangled snake pit of naked limbs, an orgy of violence. Next, he carved a Madonna of the Stairs as serene and Christian as the Centaurs were frenzied and pagan. In Bologna, he did three humble saints for a monastery church. Then in Rome, he was back to pagan, sculpting a Bacchus who’s absolutely shit-faced drunk.

In search of his artistic voice, young Michelangelo veered from pagan Centaurs to a serene Madonna, from raucous Bacchus to the poignant Pietà.

At a time when being an artist meant learning a blue-collar trade, Michelangelo was practically inventing a brand new career: the artist-as-genius. Like the poets of legend, he was creating from within, possessed by the madness of the Muses, carving his own destiny stroke by stroke—searching, stumbling, fumbling toward the heart of Art…

… as I tried to do, when I took on whatever came my way: a sizzling hot summer laying down composite-tar roofing, a stab at stand-up comedy, falling too hard for a raven-haired dancer who chewed me up and spit me out.

Forever reading reading reading, scribbling in notebooks, searching for my Muse in coffee shops and dive bars, waiting for that radiant beam from heaven—stumbling, fumbling, falling, but always falling forward…

For Michelangelo, that winding journey of discovery eventually led him to a life-changing breakthrough—his Pietà. With that exquisitely-carved statue of Mary and Jesus, he seemingly brought a heavenly vision down to earth for all to see. He’d finally found his voice. And for the first time, he proudly signed his work, chiseling his name across Mary’s sash.

And just like that, Michelangelo—barely 25—was famous.

The commissions poured in: For a nimble Apollo, a bushy-haired Peter, a delicate Madonna. He even went mano y mano against the great Leonardo da Vinci in a mural competition.

Then in the spring of 1501, Michelangelo took on his greatest challenge yet: sculpting a statue from an enormous-but-flawed block of marble known as Il Gigante—the Giant.

Michelangelo eased the block into his studio, screened it behind scaffolding, picked up his hammer and chisel, knocked a knot off what would become the statue’s heart, and started work. Three years and 20,000 chisel blows later, he stripped away the screen, and there it was: a colossal Renaissance Man, fully confident, radiating an aura of quiet intensity—David.

Like his David, Michelangelo was a man in his prime.

Florence was astounded. They insisted the work be moved to the most prominent place in town. Thousands of Michelange-maniacs lined the streets to watch as the statue—17 feet tall, top-heavy, and weighing 12,000 pounds, most of it balanced atop a fragile right ankle—was hoisted by pulley onto a wagon. Standing upright inside its beechwood cage, collared and chained like a marble King Kong, the giant rumbled through the narrow streets, heave-hoed across rollers by forty sweating men. It took four days to travel five blocks, from the Cathedral to the Palazzo Vecchio. There, David took his place guarding City Hall, instantly becoming the symbol of an up-and-coming city about to go global.

David had seemed to be an impossible challenge, and yet Michelangelo had turned it into an unprecedented triumph.

Was there nothing the young genius couldn’t do?

I find Burke at our old haunt, a tiny bar tucked behind the Mercato Centrale. The music’s too loud and the only place to sit is a rickety table against the ice cream cooler. But Burke’s already ordered a big plate of prosciutto, melon, and thick sliced bread, and I’m starved and broke and he’s buying.

I can write this off on the tour, he says.

Our group is currently on a bus tour of Florence. In the meantime, we’ll shop for wine and antipasti to surprise them with a sunset happy hour.

But first, says Burke, we fortify ourselves. He raises his fluted glass of grappa.

"Viva vino!" he says.

Ah yes. Our old war cry from the first tour we did together. A tour so improvised and reckless that if we did it today we’d be fired or incarcerated.

"Viva vino," I say.

The grappa stinks like socks and burns my heart going down.

"Ancora, Burke tells the bartender—Another."

I try to protest, but Burke says "No. Never say ‘Basta’. Not with friends. Once you start saying ‘Enough’—ffft!—you’re old."

Two more grappas materialize and Burke toasts again: Here’s to another brilliant tour. Another epic adventure—wine, women, song, and a paycheck at the end.

Burke is irrepressible. He leads more tours than anyone in the company, back-to-back-to-back, year-round. He’s based in Florence, but he was born in New Zealand, raised in Canada and Gibraltar, and calls his nationality British Commonwealth.

He starts going over the tour details—the wine-tasting in Fiesole we need to arrange, that problem hotel with quad rooms, the Teutonic bus driver. Meanwhile my brain is going over how to pay for a divorce lawyer, how to get Anabel to talk to me, and most of all, how’s our little 6-year-old Emmi handling it all?... her ever-serious face… the cinnamon scent of her hair…

You okay? he asks.

He’s pointing to my own hand—fingers splayed, pushed hard against my chest—trying to keep my heart from pouring out.

Hey, you’re gonna have to rally for this tour, he says.

Don’t worry. I tell him, I know the golden rule: You kill a Tour Member, you don’t get your bonus.

Burke slaps the table and laughs. There’s the Sam we all know—the guy who once drove a van across Asia. Man, I remember you playing sax on the weekends, writing a freakin’ book on European art, fer chrissake! You da man, Sammy…

Yeah, I’m da man. Tell it to my wife.

So Anabel wants a divorce, he says. It’s definitely an occupational hazard in this business—the time away, the wine-women-and-song…

But it’s not that, I say. I mean, sure, things have been a bit rocky between us, but that’s something everyone faces at some point in a marriage, right?—money, work, kids. The problem is that Anabel won’t even talk to me! I mean, if we could just see a counselor, I know we could—

You know what your problem is? says Burke. (Always a welcome conversation starter.)

Lack-YOU-nay, .

Huh?

That’s Latin, he says, for you got your head up your ass.

Ah yes, lacunae—gaps.

Yeah, he says, You’ve got gaps in your perception. You go around with your head in the clouds—writing music, dreaming about Michelangelo and operas and shit. Meanwhile, you don’t see what’s right in front of you. Your wife’s a runaway train, man, don’t overthink it! But knowing you, you’ll turn it into some kind of philosophical quest.

Burke is single and carefree and getting on my nerves.

Then you tell me, I say, why won’t Anabel talk to me? I call and call and she won’t even pick up. I try her friends, her pastor. I’ve apologized for anything I can possibly think of… Now I’m practically shouting: So you tell me, Doctor Love, what does she want from me?!

A divorce, says Burke. She wants a divorce.

Oh.

Yeah.

Right.

Yes, that’s exactly what she wants.

And as I listen to myself pissing and moaning about how unfair it all is, and how this woman done me wrong—well, it dawns on me that it’s just about the oldest goddam story in the world.

Burke starts to order us another round, but then—Christ! he says, "We gotta jet and meet the group! Andiamo!" And we’re off.

Ding-dong, you’re divorced!

It was just last week, and I was arriving home from work. There was a note on the kitchen counter from Anabel that she’d gone to her mom’s.

Then the doorbell rang.

A legal courier—a fresh-faced young woman—stood on the doorstep of my happy suburban home, handing me a packet of documents.

What’s this?

She handed me a receipt to sign.

Thank you, I said. (Thank you?)

And that’s how I got the news.

I started paging through.

Now comes the wife, it began in legalese, to petition for divorce. Words popped off the page:

Irreconcilable differences… emotional distress…

And finally … husband shall vacate the premises within 24 hours, or law enforcement shall be authorized to…

What?!

So Anabel was not only divorcing me—she was physically evicting me from our home and taking our daughter. I was being kicked out of my own life.

What a nightmare.

I called Anabel—no answer. I tried her mom—nothing.

Now what? I mean, how does one even respond to a situation like this? This wasn’t just heartbreak, but serious legal jeopardy.

I grabbed my rucksack. Was I packing for a day, a week, or the rest of my life? I took whatever came to my shell-shocked mind—a wool cap, aftershave, a book on Renaissance art, a 2-pound bag of raisins. (Raisins, really? But in fact they came in handy the next day when I was broke and crashing in Dev’s basement.) The last thing I packed was a photo of my daughter in the sparkly-stars-on-it frame she made herself—which I have treasured often these troubling few days.

Then I walked the halls. I looked in each room. I saw where Emmi and I built pillow forts, places Anabel and I had made love, I smelled the sheets. I stood on the patio where just last month we celebrated my birthday and where my wife had stood before all our friends (yes, I tell myself, that really did happen!) and proudly proclaimed how much she loved me. I lingered longest in Emmi’s room, scattered with toys, where (I’m embarrassed to admit) I even picked up her Boo-bear, gave him a hug, and told him to take care of her until my return.

Then I grabbed the cognac from the kitchen cupboard, took a long glug-glug, drew a deep breath, and gathered myself. I threw my rucksack over my shoulder and took one last look around. Then I opened the door, locked it behind me, and walked out of my loving home and into the wide, wide world.

Burke and I roll through late-afternoon Florence, hitting the hole-in-the-wall delis to cobble together our group picnic. We cross the Ponte Vecchio, with its dozens of love locks—each one symbolizing a loving couple’s undying devotion to the end of time or