Porsche, Ferrari and Lamborghini make works of art that are hard to drive fast - and it should stay that way

摘要

I had a visit from an Australian couple the other day and we had a ball, though I didn't always envy his Europe-rookie wife as we ignored her jet lag to scorch around on an MT-guided tour of Germany and Italy. One day, the BMW Museum, the next the train to Florence, a drive to Milan a day later, then a blast to Rome on the train. (It seems demonstrably unfair that it's allowed to cruise at 250km/h and I'm not.) I'm sure all this made an impact on our friends, but the Uffizi Gallery and the Vatican Museum connected with me, and the Louvre in Paris had the same effect. As an evangelical atheist, they didn't connect on any religious level, but an automotive one. Bear with me... If you want to see Italy's best art, go to the Louvre in Paris, because Napoleon pilfered most of it. It's the sort of place people go if: a) they understand art, love art and want to spend a week there taking notes and sketches or, b) they have succumbed to the default position and peer-driven curiosity to stand on outstretched toes looking over countless American heads to glimpse the surprisingly small and unprepossessing Mona Lisa.