At first the queue went all the way down to Ponte Vecchio about 400 yards from the entrance. There were still jewellry shops on both sides of the bridge, but it was dominated by African vendors. They sold "real Gucci handbags, special price" and cheap toys to the tourists. The latest going was the crawling plastic soldier. He crawled in combat mode over the ancient, littered pavement, occasionally stopping to fire his gun.

Queueing would take about two and a half hours, he estimated. Two and a half hours before getting to some of the greatest paintings on Earth. However, he only wanted to see one in particular. Around 1486 it was done, a good 500 years ago. And still the beauty and sensitivity was unmatched. Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, a rich Renaissance trader and patron, had requested the son of a tanner to paint it. It was not unusual that artists sprung from common backgrounds. This was Alessandro Filipepi's most famous picture, although he had worked on the Sistine Chapel as well. Nobody knew him under his real name. He always seemed to be the fourth name after Michelangelo, Leonardo and Rafael. And yet this painting in the true spirit of the Renaissance was the most beautiful of them all.

It was displayed in Room 10-14. It was really just one room. According to the photo of the room it was located, there was no pane of glas in front of it. The queue crept slowly inch by inch towards the entrance. Tourists of all nations (Americans in front and Japanese behind him) came here to stare at Michelangelo's Tando Dori and Titian's Venus of Urbino or whatever other paintings they had heard of in their ignorance. So they went there to tell their ignorant friends that they had seen them, while their friends were invading another country with their handy cams and 35mms. Sometimes a tear rolled down his cheek when he in one of his books he observed the perfect figure in the center, her innocent and sensual beauty, her face that was so much more perfect than the highly overrated Mona Lisa in the Louvre. He had never seen it, but he would never lay hands on it.

An old Indian woman smiled at him and said something in Hindu while leaning on one of the columns in the shady archway that they had reached after an hour. He smiled back at her, knowingly, as if he had understood although he had no clue and did not really care. He played with the waterpistol in his pocket that was completely made of glass to safely store the liquid in it. He had invented it himself and was immensely proud of it. He had even felt a breath of Leonardo's inventions in it. Something unique that no one had thought of before.

He thought of Hitler and Nero while taking another little step and also of the owner of Shakespeare's birthplace. The man was so annoyed with all the visitors at one time, that he had just torn it down. He didn't know the name of that man, but the mere fact, that his existence was known to him, was what mattered the most. And finally the great library in Alexandria that had burnt down in the 13th century destroying some of the greatest and most unique writings in the history of mankind. No one had taken credit for that action. Apparently it had just been an accident.

They came closer to the entrance. His name would be remembered as well. At first it would be on everyone's tongue. On the front page of all the pages in massive headlines. He didn't care about that. The fifteen minutes of fame were not what he was after. He was seeking immortality and he would find it, if only in the art books that just the connoisseurs read. But that was good enough.

His group entered the front hall and they bought their tickets for 12000 Lira. The guard he showed the ticket to, let him pass without making any hassle or finding the water pistol. He would always stand in the shade of Botticelli but he would stand out from the masses. And by standing in the shade of the great master, he would pay him respect. For he could never produce anything like he had. It was the only way he had to get fame. When he was younger he had tried to paint himself. But contemporary art was not about artistry and certainly not about beauty. It was just about publicity and interpreting. It wasn't worth wasting any time on. The 20th century and namely Vasily Kandinsky who had started all that abstract nonsense had given art the kiss of death.

He scurried past the medieval section and once again briefly became aware of the magnificient step the Renaissance had taken from the rather monotonous, formalised and iconographic Byzantinian art, with the exclusively religious content, to the focus of man in ist entirety and complexity. The rebirth not only of the antique but subsequently of science, art and philosophy. With his fingers firmly around the trigger of the water pistol he went into Room 10-14. For a second he stood there, wondering whether at least some of the people looking at The Birth of Venus felt anything, but most of them were more busy with their cameras and ignoring the firm and loud shouts of the female guard yelling "No flash". But this weakness was easily shaken off and with a quote from Goethe's Faust he stepped forward: All that comes into existence is worth its destruction.