A knee-high verdigris multi-levelled Michelangelo David wedges open the door. Inside, an empire. Between the shelves of self-assembly Ponte Vecchio kits and the huge selection of bases for pallazzi and burial chapels, there are thousands of Lego figures of dukes and counts and princes and their bed-tied pregnant women and silent mothers, some holding tiny letters in recognisable font of God-sent love for the arts and sciences. On top of the cash register, an unshaved villain dangles grimacing with the usual limbs from a strappado. I ask why the brown plastic pyres for mini-yellow-faced heretics are in the 50% Off! bucket but everyone seems too busy to answer. Uninspired, I climb over a young woman reconstructing a 15th-century Florentine execution who asks me to unwedge the door as I leave.
