At some point near the end of the last millennium, I was shown around Rome by two Roman Catholic friends of mine. The experience was a blur of churches, statues, paintings, fountains and mouldering palazzos interspersed with large quantities of pizza so crispy that it has slightly spoiled my every subsequent encounter with the dish. As with heroin, sometimes it’s better not to know what you’re missing.
It was an ecclesiastically skewed tour – the eternal city’s ancient and illustrious pagan republic barely got a look-in – but a lot of fun for someone like me who loves old stuff. I envied my friends their ability, in any given church, to identify the various saints by their telltale kit, like heroes from the Marvel universe. I swore I would develop the skill myself – it would make going around churches so much more fun – but all I seem to know now is that Saint Peter has keys and Saint Mark a lion, so I’m no closer to spotting Saint Boniface from his nunchucks or Saint Ethel from her basket of cheeses, or working out whether a stained glass window depicts the ascension, the annunciation, the transfiguration or the exfoliation.
