Note: This post was lifted directly from my notes on Saturday, March 31st. It is complete and unabridged.

It’s Saturday afternoon now and I am taking lunch on the Piazza della Signoria. Michelangelo walked here in this square. So did Galileo. So did Machiavelli. The Medici rose to power on the business flowing through this square. The Renaissance was born and flourished in these walls. This is the cradle of what is good and right about Western civilization… Of art, of science, of understanding what it means to be men. Someone wiser than I once said “If I see further, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.” It is how I feel here in this place. My own learning, my curiosity, and the desire for improve constantly find their own root here. In coming Florence and seeing these things and walking in the steps of the ponderously brilliant minds who lived and worked here I have a deeper understanding of myself and a far more humble perspective of my own meager talents.