Archive for January, 2008

Dalton Sinclair Robertson died this week. He was 80.

I first met Dalton in 1967 when I was toiling in “the trades,” as the Maclean-Hunter business publication division was known. I was a lowly assistant editor on Modern Purchasing magazine and Dalton was executive editor of The Financial Post but was a “secret” contributor. Each month his commentary on the economy ran in the front of the magazine - with no byline - and it was my job to edit his column, a task that consisted of putting paragraph marks on his stellar copy and sending it to the plant for typesetting.
Dalton always walked his copy down the one flight of stairs from The Financial Post, just before deadline. I would work at FP later in life, but in those days, that one floor higher looked like Mount Everest to me.

Our paths crossed again in March 1978. I had worked for Robert Stanfield, leader of the Progressive Conservative Party. I wanted to return to journalism, but was seen as tainted goods, so I joined the Bank of Nova Scotia for two years in public affairs. Suitably drycleaned, I met with Dalton who said, “You don’t want to work at The Post. All we have at the moment is an opening for pulp and paper beat reporter. Why don’t you talk to Peter Newman? He’s taking Maclean’s weekly.” Peter hired me as business editor, starting that June. I was later managing editor and had a national column. Quite a leap from the trades.

Dalton influenced our lives again in July 1991. By then I was working for The Financial Post as Washington bureau chief. The G7 Economic Summit was in London, so Sandy came along and we thought we might visit France for a holiday after the meeting.

Dalton had retired and purchased a home in France, so I phoned and asked if he had any suggestions where we could stay on short notice. “My three-weeker just dropped out,” said Dalton, “you can rent my place.”

And so we found Heaven on earth in Puycelci - a fortified medieval village that looked like a wedding cake sitting on a hilltop an hour north of Toulouse. Views from the terrace of the two-bedroom stone dwelling were spectacular with the Pyrenees visible on a clear day. Seven private and interconnected gardens offered Sandy plenty of artistic scope. The local food and wine were unforgettable. Over the next decade, we rented Puycelci seven more times, staying as long as a month during the summer when Dalton preferred his Muskoka cottage.

We last saw Dalton in November at an eightieth birthday celebration attended by an eclectic group of fifty friends. Although Dalton never edited any of my work, he was an avid reader of my books and pronounced Fantasy in Florence my best yet. “It’s so free,” he said, “you have developed an entirely new style.” Thank you and farewell to a mentor, landlord and long-time friend.

Today we received two copies of our book, Fantasy in Florence, bound in finely tooled leather, the work of our friend Paolo Bruscoli. (That’s him at the top left of the blog with Sandy.) Paolo has purchased several boxes of our book and proudly displays the book in his shop window at Via Montebello 58R. You can visit his website here. Both of these handworked volumes have gold engraved lettering and tooling with the title and our names along with beautiful Renaissance patterning in the background.

Paolo, the fourth generation to run his firm, and his wife Silvia, became caring and wonderful friends. How we met the couple was a classic bit of Florentine serendipity. Sandy and I had spent some time browsing at the weekly antiques market in Piazza Santo Spirito and I’d bought a used copy of Frederick Hartt’s classic, History of Italian Renaissance Art.

Around the corner, we paused and looked in the window of an artist’s studio, only to have a gentleman come out and invite us inside. He turned out to be Attilio Franco, calligraphist and card maker, who also became a friend and took me for a few wild rides in his 1969 Fiat 500. I happened to mention at that first encounter that the book I’d just bought needed some work. Two days later, Attilio introduced us to Paolo Bruscoli, who happily did the minor repairs, and later let Sandy use some of his machinery.

Paolo sponsored us at a meeting of The Florence Foundation for Artistic Crafts where we met Giampiero Maracchi. Giampiero and his wife Irma Schwegler also became friends and we had a wonderful dinner at their house. It was Giampiero who told me about some of the other artisans who ended up being featured in the book such as Stephano Bemer and Paolo Penco.

And that’s how it goes in Florence. To start the ball rolling, all you have to do is buy a used book and the book you eventually write about your exploits will be leather bound by a lovely man you met along the way.

Of all the ideas put forth to save Florence from itself, the plan announced this week by Mayor Leonardo Domenici to move Michelangelo’s David from the historic centre of the city to the suburbs in order to ease crowding has to be the most foolish.

David’s current home in the Accademia Gallery, next door to the art school, the Academy of Fine Arts, is perfect. There is easy access for tourists by foot; most hotels are a mere fifteen-minute walk away. No fewer than ten city bus lines stop in nearby San Marco, a one-minute walk.

I often saw the lineups for David, stretching down Via Ricasoli as far as Via Degli Alfani, but they hardly constitute crowding except for that one sidewalk and there was always easy passage on the other side of the street. The numbers are nothing like at the Uffizi, where five times as many people wait for much longer. What will the mayor suggest next? Move Ponte Vecchio? Even the retreating Germans left that beauteous bridge intact.

David has already suffered enough indignities from a recent toxic cleaning. I can see him now, girding his marble loins, for the next battle against this new foe. Or are the mayor’s musings no more than some savvy marketing ploy to raise the city’s profile as consumers consider whether - or even if - they will travel abroad this summer?

Every once in a while I receive an accolade by email that makes writing books worthwhile. Such praise arrived recently from British Columbia and I want to share it with other readers.

“This is a very small thank you for a wonderful travel book. For a few days, while on the ferry to Victoria and before bed, I was there with you and Sandy savouring the sights, sounds, and smells of Florence and environs. Although I have not been to Italy, my husband and I shall go there one day. In preparation, I will reread the lively, informative and often amusing account of your nine months in Florence and will take the book with us, too.

I was bereft when I reached the end of Fantasy in Florence, for you and for me. The book, as did your time there, ended much too soon.”

There are several excellent bookstores in Florence that carry English-language books, but the one we haunted most was Edison in Piazza della Repubblica. In addition to the usual guides, art books and novels, Edison also carried such popular travel writers as Paul Therault, Bill Bryson, Frances Mayes, and the nonno of them all, Peter Mayle.

Every travel writer pines for the same exalted category as Mayle’s best-seller, A Year in Provence, first published in 1989. I don’t expect to reach similar stratospheric success, but I wouldn’t mind rubbing shoulders with Mayle and the others, by placing copies of Fantasy in Florence in bookstores throughout Italy for consideration by the millions of tourists who teem into the country.

As a result, I’m looking a distributor in Italy. My publishing contract with McArthur & Co. covered Canadian rights only and while the book has done well in Canada, the time has come to see if I can crack foreign markets. For a U.S. deal, you need a platform. In other words, if I were Lou Dobbs, distribution would be a snap. Seeing what’s happened to His Shrillness these days, I’m glad I’m not him.

I spoke with Paolo Ponti, Italian Trade Commissioner in Toronto, who promotes Italian exports to Canada. He has made two helpful suggestions. First, there’s the International Book Fair in Torino May 8-12. Second, the Canadian Embassy in Rome. I’ll be looking into both.

Meanwhile, any other thoughts are welcome. Wish me luck!

This day, January 6, produced one of my favorite moments during our stay. Epiphany in Florence features a pageant with hundreds of individuals in medieval costumes representing nobility, the military, and the city’s major industries.

The official party, seated on the chairs on the Duomo steps, included church officials, local dignitaries, and representatives of regional organizations. Pride of place went to three Roman Catholic priests, all in black cassocks, with colorful hats signifying their status. Ennio Cardinal Antonelli wore red, the bishop violet, and the monsignor black.

The officials presided over an hour-long parade as couple after enrobed couple strolled past at a courtly pace, women in velvet gowns, men in doublets and hose. And the hats! Wide-brimmed hats, round floppy hats, hats with rolled crowns, and hats with plumes. Appreciative applause rippled from spectators standing five deep.

Participants formed lines between the cathedral and the Baptistery, making room for the arriving drummers, trumpeters, pennant-tossers, and banner-carriers in various versions of red and white, the Florentine colors. The military wore silver helmets and crested breastplates; they carried pikes, broadswords and staffs.

A sixty-member schoolgirl choir, all dressed in red tunics, white stockings, and Santa hats, sang seasonal tunes ranging from Venite Adoremus to Jingle Bells while carrying out choreographed hand and arm movements. The soloist had a voice so sweet it made your heart ache.

Cardinal Antonelli spoke to the children about the three magi and their relevance to Epiphany. When he asked what expensive gifts they brought for the Christ Child - an easy question, since the answer had already been given that day in song and story - there was only silence from the children.

Antonelli told them the answer, using a teacher’s patient tone, then asked: What did each of the expensive gifts symbolize? Again, the children were silent. “Gold meant that Christ was King, incense represented his divinity, and myrrh foretold His death on the cross. But the magi also brought something else - their love,” he continued. “Which do you think was the most important gift - love or expensive gifts?” This time, there was no doubt in the children’s minds. Together, they all shouted: “Expensive gifts.” Everyone laughed, even His Eminence.

If there’s one thing an author enjoys (beyond giving readers pleasure), it’s hearing that an interview went well and the published description aptly captures the subject. Such was the news in an email I recently received from Sandra Cemulini who runs an exclusive travel agency you can read about at http://luxury-services.net/default.aspx

Ms. Cemulini knows Stefano Bemer, the custom shoe maker who I spent some time with in Florence watching him work and seeing his passion for the leathers, skins, hides and other items he uses for his creations. Stefano is such a pleasure to be with that Daniel Day-Lewis, who played Helen Bonham Carter’s affianced in everyone’s favorite movie about Florence, Room with a View, spent almost a year in Stefano’s shop making the maestro a pair of shoes while his own order was being filled. Here’s what Ms. Cemulini wrote in her email to me:

“I really enjoyed your book, I am good friends with Mario and Stefano Bemer, and they asked me to read it and then tell them about it. I did, you could not have painted a more real picture of Stefano! I would read it and comment with my dear friend who is British but has lived in Florence for thirty years, I explained that Canadians are a little bit in between Americans and English. We had some good laughs. I recommend your book to potential clients of mine - we own an agency which designs all-inclusive vacations in Italy, mainly Tuscany. So thank you for a wonderful book.

But I do need to tell you that what I loved most about your book was ‘la vera storia d’amore,’ please tell Sandy that your love story is something most women can only dream about.

Many good wishes per un Felice Anno Nuovo.”