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43 THE CHURCHES OF ITALY They are, like amusement parks, best when almost empty. Like Great Danes in dorm rooms, more impressive for what surrounds, licking themselves in the middle of it all: that broken piazza and bad museum, bright shops of potsherds and prosciutto. They are, like horses in the heyday of Detroit, beautiful in their uselessness. More beautiful, in fact. Like damaged clocks, they possess and are possessed by history, stone still in all our million photos. As if they never breathed. Uncanny, aloof, they are aces at the sprawl, laid out and loving it. We cannot help but humor them, oil the great wheels, crank them up so the engines sputter, so everybody’s hands wave in the air. ...

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