22 JUNE 1996, Page 19

Better luck this time

FLORENCE begins to get hot and sticky at this time of year, and that is just the climate. This weekend's European summit meeting must send it right off the dial. All that hot air about union, all those potentates, courtiers, men-at-arms and hangers-on, posturing, squabbling and feasting — the place will have seen nothing like it since 1440, when the pope of the day called a summit meeting intended to reunite Christendom. That did not work very well either, beyond giving Benozzo Gozzoli ideas for painting the Medici chapel. One of the three kings in his fresco is thought to be John Palaeologue, emperor of the schismatic East. John Major should check him out. He looks depressed, as well he might. I shall be staying at home.