‘To the sun Rome owes its underlying glow, and its air called golden – to me, more the yellow of white wine; like wine it raises agreeability to poetry. One remembers the glow as a constant, the city as a succession of bright distances…’
Elizabeth Bowen, A Time in Rome, 1960, p.143
I was celebrating the coming Christmas holiday in my favourite Sardinian osteria when my mobile phone rang. The chatter around me was loud, so I found it hard to hear an acquaintance over the static enquire if I might serve on a (government) museum committee. Rather than quiz him, given the circumstances, I said ‘yes’. In 30 seconds, the matter was closed. Without realising it, I had committed myself to 11 days on an Italian Ministry of Culture museum selection commission.
Ten days later, the formal email came, as the national gazette reported the appointment of the commission to select directors for Pompeii, the Reggia at Caserta (a Bourbon palace that was Allied headquarters for the Mediterranean theatre from 1944 to 1945), and the Accademia in Venice, a small gallery with amazing collections that, bizarrely, attracts few visitors. I should have recognised the problem when I looked closer: we were five academics in total, and I was listed as Professor Arch[itect] Odges. ‘H’ is always a problem in Italy. But how on earth did I become an architect? It was my first insight into a Wonderland that my non-academic friends took to be a great honour, and induced funereal commiserations from those in the know.
