Today Like Six Hundred Years Ago

The idea was given to us by Nicholas Eckstein, an Australian scholar who has spent his life digging through the archives of the “District of the Green Dragon” we live in.

As a social historian, he caught onto something art historians had failed to see: the fresco represents the houses of our district, where the bakers of San Frediano, associated in the Confraternity of Saint Agnes of the Carmine church and led by their captain, distributed bread – stamped with the seal of the Company – to the needy: here represented by a mother with a child. A woman who, rightly enough, has anything but a humble expression on her face.

At Saint Peter’s feet, the prone body is that of Ananias who – when the first Christians decided to share what they owned – decided to keep his money for himself.

Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Evangelicals, Sikhs and people of secular orientation are all part of the life of our garden: no religious symbolism meant, therefore.

What we want to do is remember this extraordinary picture of our own Commons as it organised itself and handled its own needs in solidarity.

Six hundred years ago, like today.