Reflections of Medusa

It is early in November 2006, and I am in Trento in northern Italy as the guest of Professor Antonio Strati. I am here to spend six weeks at the university working with his Masters course and contributing to the doctoral programme. We have an apartment belonging to the university near the river and a short walk from the Palazzo Albere which houses the Museum of Modern Art. On this particular evening we are going to visit an exhibition of the work of Franz von Stuck. It is clear from the outset that Antonio is very much on home territory in the museum. The staff know him and he wanders around the gallery with his usual charm and bonhomie. He has exhibited here and he very kindly gives me a catalogue of his exhibition of photographs. It is Silvia’s birthday in the next few days and Antonio has bought her a new digital camera which he gives her as an early present so that she can take some photographs of the exhibition and of us (see Figure 1.3, p. 24). The head of the museum introduces the exhibition. There is a crowd of perhaps 150 people there, one or two extremely well behaved children and ourselves. Harro with a working knowledge of Italian listens sagely while I try to grasp one or two things from my long past study of Latin: more useful for reading than listening. The introduction goes on for 35 minutes and the audience is rapt.