Still Life: The instant Sunday Times bestseller and BBC Between the Covers Book Club pick

Darnley said that Sigmund Freud had visited in 1899 and had somehow forgotten Signorelli’s name. This he’d called the mechanism of repression and it became fundamental in Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams.

Had grounded them and introduced them to a way of life they would aspire to and return to.

It’s what we’ve always done. Left a mark on a cave, or on a page. Showing who we are, sharing our view of the world, the life we’re made to bear.

A little over a month before, they’d driven up to Orvieto, a city built on a huge rock overlooking the Paglia Valley. They’d sat on the bonnet of the jeep and drunk red wine out of their canteens as bombers roared overhead towards Mount Cetona, the boundary of Tuscany. They’d stumbled into the cathedral, into the San Brizio chapel, where Luca Signo

art becomes a mirror.

All the symbolism and the paradox, ours to interpret. That’s how it becomes part of us. And as counterpoint to our suffering, we have beauty. We like beauty, don’t we? Something good on the eye cheers us. Does something to us on a cellular level, makes us feel alive and enriched. Beautiful art opens our eyes to the beauty of the world, Ulysses. It

Art and life intertwined.

They shared the same simplicity of décor, a luxurious ease of taste and style, frescoes on the ceilings, but only curved lines and clusters of leaves, blue and white, or white and pink, washed out by age or a skilful brush.

No! Dante. The belief that a combination of intellect and beauty can make the world a better place.