Pleasure, Knowledge and Love

Pleasure, Knowledge, and Love

By Cuirbouilli

Anthony thought the Uffizi was amazing.  Every room contained a world-famous painting or sculpture.  He saw artwork there he recalled seeing in books since childhood.  The Madonna and Child with Angels by Filippo Lippi, The Birth of Venus by Botticelli, and The Venus of Urbino by Titian were among his favorites that he got to behold in all their glory.  To view such masterpieces with his very eyes was almost surreal to him.  

His brain was still buzzing from the experience as he sat down on the stone wall inside the Loggia dei Lanzi.  Propping his feet up on the slab, he leaned back on one arm and watched the people lined up outside the Uffizi across the street.  It was the off-season for tourism and there were still long lines of people waiting to get inside the museum.

He took a long drink from the lukewarm bottle of Coca Cola he pulled out of his jacket pocket.  It wasn’t much warmer than when he bought it.  

Anthony was twenty-seven years old.  He was an American college student.  It was spring break in April in 2007 and he was taking a ten-day tour of Italy.  He had already spent three days in Venice.  This was his second of three days in Florence and he was headed to Rome after that.   

Anthony’s Great-Grandmother Agnes died the year before and left him twenty-thousand dollars in her will.  He decided to use some of the money to pay for a trip to Italy to celebrate his upcoming college graduation.  What better place was there for an aspiring art student to gain inspiration than to view the greatest works in the world?

Anthony was going to graduate that June with a bachelor's degree in graphic design.  Maybe it was more accurate to say that if he didn’t graduate his Mom and Dad were going to kill him.  After eight years of helping him pay his college tuition and rent Anthony’s parents were seriously pressuring him to finish a degree and finally get a job.   

Anthony had to admit, he was getting tired of being an eternal student.  He just had trouble deciding what to do for a career.  He was talented at drawing.  When he graduated high school he thought he wanted to be an architect.  He was too right-brain dominant though.  After three years he realized that he would be miserable drafting buildings for the rest of his life, not to mention that he hated physics and calculus.    

Then his longtime girlfriend Amy broke up with him when she got her journalism degree and moved away.  He really liked Amy, but she was too anxious to get married.  He wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment at the young age of twenty-three.    

Somewhat disillusioned about his future, he spent another three years dabbling half-hearted in art classes while working a part-time job and partying with friends.  His parents were patient, but urged him increasingly to pick a major and finish his schooling.  

He started to feel like a loser when most of his old college friends moved on to the working world, got married, and started having kids.  

In the past two years he focused on graphic design and he had nearly completed the course work.  He wasn’t sure what he would do with his degree, but he had to start somewhere.  He understood that he would have to suffer through some low-paying entry level positions before he landed something good.

Another motivating factor for Anthony to get on with his life was his present situation with women.  

He dated a bit over the past couple years since Amy left.  The dating scene was no longer meeting his expectations like it used to, though, and he was becoming increasingly frustrated.  

Girls told Anthony he was cute for as long as he could remember.  He had deep brown eyes, a boyish grin, and his wavy, dark hair fell into place naturally if he raked his hand through it.  He stood six-feet tall with broad shoulders and was blessed with a lean, muscular build through no effort of his own.  He groomed an easy-going attitude and never had much trouble getting girls to go out with him.  He even got laid pretty regularly, so he really didn’t have much to complain about until now.

His present difficulty with women was meeting one that he was genuinely attracted to.

Something he discovered in recent years was that smart, confident women appealed to him way more than the brainless party chicks he was used to being around.  A poised, well-dressed, intelligent girl turned him on like crazy.  Unfortunately most of the girls he met acted stupid, dressed sloppy, or degraded themselves with crude behavior to cover up low self-esteem.  

He joked somewhat bitterly that he was looking for Natalie Portman and kept coming up with Tara Reid.  

Of course he knew he might be aiming too high.  A slacker student with no career prospects on the horizon probably couldn't expect some hot socialite to fall in love with him.  

He wasn’t going to give up trying though.  Even if he didn’t succeed there was always the thrill of the chase.

He took another drink of his flat soda and looked around the building he was in.

The Loggia dei Lanzi was a famous open-air sculpture gallery.  According to the tour guide the structure was built in the fourteenth century and was originally used for public gatherings before the Medicis filled it with art.  

The statues displayed within the Loggia depicted figures from classical mythology.  Some dated all the way back to antiquity.  The others were created during the renaissance or sometime in the centuries after.     

Three wide arches resting on four massive stone columns formed the front edifice of the Loggia, facing the square known as the Piazza della Signoria.  The gallery interior was spacious beneath a high vaulted ceiling.  A low stone wall traced along the perimeter and functioned as a place for people to sit and admire the sculptures or merely take in the atmosphere of the ancient city.  

Anthony sat in the back left corner where he had a good view of his spectacular surroundings.  There were three other people seated along the same section of wall as him and about twenty-five people in the gallery altogether.  Even in the off-season for tourism, Florence was a bustling place.

The Uffizi was to his right.  The gallery continued the entire length of the street and wrapped around to form the back wall of the Loggia behind him.  

The stark, crenellated medieval fortress known as the Palazzo Vecchio towered high above the square before him.  He pondered on how ruthless the Medici family must have been to rule Florence from such a formidable place.   

The striking nineteenth century sculpture titled The Rape of Polyxena loomed over him on the left.  Mighty Achilles was immortalized in white marble as he carried the Trojan princess away while threatening to strike her pleading mother, Queen Hecuba, with his sword.  

Anthony had already gazed at the statue for some minutes.  The bare-breasted female figures were very natural and beautiful to him.  The portrayal of female beauty varied over the centuries depending on artistic style, but he would argue that what a man recognized as “a pretty girl” probably looked the same now as she did five-hundred years ago.

The sound of women’s heels clicking on the stone pavement nearby drew his attention downward from the sculpture.  

He expected to see some local Italian women enjoying a smoke together.   

He blinked his eyes to do a double take.

Three of the most gorgeous women he had ever seen entered the gallery!  They paused for only a moment.  

His heart skipped a beat as they turned to walk in his direction!

All three women were jaw-droppingly beautiful!  Not only that, but they were each buttoned up in long, sleek black leather coats, one identical to the other with tall pointed collars flipped up around their necks!

Continued at http://lctdadrms.blogspot.com/p/pleasure-knowledge-and-love-by.html