In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace - and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.
Harry Lime (played by Orson Welles) in The Third Man
Domenico Ghirlandaio 1449-1494
Fresco at Cappella Tornabuoni, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, created 1486-90.
Fresco at Cappella Tornabuoni, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, created 1486-90.