As this was my first visit to the Bel Paese, the Beautiful Country (Italy) I did the usual tourist fare: the hot August crawl through the “important” churches and the standard exposure to Michelangelo’s anatomical research.

I learned while touring several churches that too much anatomical revelation required the wearing of something of a hybrid between a brown hospital gown and a paper trash bag. These “wraps,” as I called them, were handed out free of charge at the church entrances by male attendants to women subjectively discerned—by the men—to be clothed disrespectfully. Disclaiming aesthetics, they were designed to merely cover the shoulders and knees. One size fit all. My shoulders and knees were, evidently, not disrespectful. Universally derided, they clearly made the “chosen women” look like transients. To glance at gatherings of women on their knees in prayer before shrines was to look at rows of potatoes. They discarded their “wraps” at the church exits. Dress codes were only enforced at particular high-traffic churches. Some sacred places were apparently more sacred than others.

Feeling too hot and weary to even wipe the sweat off my brow, I sat with Joanne on the wall, motionless, presenting like a Duane Hanson sculpture. My only evidence of being alive was the beads of sweat dripping off the contour of my American nose. Joanne was playing with her bangs, trying to revive their whirls.
In the center of the sequestered cobblestone piazza where we sat was a towering object of wonder. My eyes traveled scrupulously up and down the vertical structure of stone. It was a confiscated ancient Egyptian obelisk covered with hieroglyphics undoubtedly speaking of matters political and religious. The obelisk was a four-sided eulogy commemorating the loss of a conquered and circumscribed civilization. Capping the apex of the “prisoner of war” was an iron Christian cross. The emblematic Egyptian loss was now a mere architectural pedestal paraded past by pizza-seeking pedestrians. Holding its ground in a swirling sea of philistines, its engraved messages were nonetheless irredeemably lost, reduced to mere distressed decorative text on a monument promoting a now different bearing of belief.

Stationed under a red, white, and green striped umbrella snuggled up to the side of an unimaginative building was a fortune-teller at a small round table covered with a red tablecloth. The only objects on the table were two candles, an inexpensive wristwatch, and a yellowing paperback of Planet of the Apes. The fortune-teller had straight, shoulder-length blond hair and strikingly resembled Madonna—the singing one. Her low cut black gown was resplendent with sequins and gold threading—stereotypical fortune-teller couture.

I had kept an eye on her as I loitered on the wall. The teller’s smile was raffish, but her overall manner was solemn when working with clients. No crystal ball—it was all in the cards. I remembered from a different era art history class that it was Baroque sculptor, artist, and architect Gianlorenzo Bernini who had created in church architecture the concept of “theaters within a theater”—side chapels of a dramatic stage design within the larger stage of the church. The setting of the current fortune-telling created a small sideshow on the fringe of the larger theatrical piazza. This was a location for stargazing, monument hazing, heaven and hell raising, all wrapped up in a single sight-seeing extravaganza.