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Traveler%u2019s Notebook:Europe On Four Guards A Day Is the Way to Do It RightBYLUCETTELAGNADOThere are those of us who will only travel to Italy in the company of a Cook%u2019s guided tour, while others, the more daring ones, tote around copies of Bernard Berenson%u2019s %u201cThe Italian Renaissance%u201d (all 25 volumes) along with a pocket dictionary. But as I discovered on a recent trip abroad, the ultimate way to explore the Medici%u2019s Florence or Fellini%u2019s Rome is to arm yourself with a couple of museum guards.Unlike his American counterpart, whose knowledge seldom exceeds indicating the nearest water cooler, your typical Italian museum guard knows every nook, cranny and secret chamber of the Palazzo he watches over. Communication problems notwithstanding, efforts to engage him in conversation can prove more rewarding than a close reading of Berenson%u2019s lifetime work.My most memorable experience resulted precisely from such a mild, if not altogether innocent flirtation with an octogenarian guard over at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.As soon as I%u2019d entered the main entrance hall, a quick glance at the painted ceilings, the numerous statues and tapestries was enough to tell me I could not get through it alone. It was imperative that I find someone who could make some sense out of all I was seeing. I spotted three guards standing idly at one corner of the room. One was young and handsome, and smiling tentatively in my direction. The other, not so young, was also leering invitingly. The third, who looked old enough to have been around when the palace was built, was staring at his shoes. That was my man. As a connoisseur of guards, 1 knew the young one would be of no earthly use except for an unwanted date, while the older one, though more knowledgeable, might still prove annoying. The old man probably knew the most and also was past the point of caring about making it with an American girl.%u2018HISTOR!A%u2019 LOW DOWNWith my biggest smile and my most broken Italian I accosted him. (Unlike the French, the Italians appreciate a certain unfamiliarity with their language: itendears you to them, actually.) After several loud %u201c Per Favores,%u201d I managed to rouse him from his reverie and proceeded to entreat him to tell me the %u201c historia%u201d of the room. When I was rewarded with a pinch on the cheek and a %u201cche Carina%u201d I knew I%u2019d made a good choice. Pretty soon, he was chattering away, and explaining every one of the thirty or so statues, paintings and tapestries, and had even permitted me to touch the Michaelangelo.As I was about to say thank you and move on, he grabbed my hand and, muttering something about %u201c Cosimo%u2014la sala de Cosimo%u201d led me to a small room tucked away to the side. It was the tiny, exquisite study of Cosimo de Medici, the grand duke of Florence, and was lined wall to wall with paintings by Vasari. In awe, I turned around to find my little guard had closed the door and was locking it shut. Once again he grabbed my hand and led me over to one of the paintings which he pulled open, to reveal a dark passageway. As I followed him up the pitch black stairway, I remembered my mom%u2019s admonitions that a girl should %u201c never travel to Italy alone.%u201dI fought the temptation to run out and followed him up what seemed an interminable number of dark winding stairways through corridors, and again through a hole in the wall to a huge, sun-filled room with wood panelling and gilded ceilings. This, as he explained, was the secret study or %u201ctesoretto%u201d of the Grand Duke, where he would go to study with the assurance of never being disturbed. Everv oanel turned out to be a safe, except one, which again proved to contain a staircase.WHERE ARE WE GOING?Up we went again, me panting, and the guide laughing and lighting an occasional match to show me the way, until we found ourselves in a small room with no window%u2018Up we went again, me panting, and the guidelaughing and lighting an occasional matchto show me the way until we found ourselvesin a small room with no window . .which turned out to be the vault of the Medicis, where all the family gold and jewelry had been kept, three hundred years before. I had no idea where we were but it was clear the room had been situated in such a way to make it inaccessible to anyone but the most trusted confidantes of the family. We walked out through another secret panel to another room which had what appeared to be a crevice in the wall. The guide leaned out. and urged me to do the same, but I couldn%u2019t see a thing, and was feeling bothered by a strange, unpleasant smell and a queasy feeling in my stomach. My guide (his name, incidentally, was Cosimo, of all things) had become very excited and was shouting %u201c Arno, Arno, Arno%u201d and gesticulatingmadly.It finally dawned on my that the opening I was leaning against was a hole that led to the Arno River, some thousands of feet below. Cosimo would lure traitors and spies with promises of gold from his vault, and then dispose of them in this perfect manner. No one, of course, could ever guess the manner of their disappearance.I was by then absolutely terrified and wishing mvself safelv back in Brooklyn somewhere, instead of with a man I didn%u2019t even know, in some long forgotten chamber with an opening to the sea. Cosimo must have noticed how green I%u2019d turned because he laughed, and taking my hand, led me down the dark labyrinth of stairs back to the innocent looking study ofCosimo I. There was a group of senior citizens from Iowa pounding on the door, and I pushed my way through them feeling both drained and exalted. I had just seen something few tourists ever saw, and most historians ignore. For all its beauty and grandeur, the Palazzo was finally just a facade to hide all the intrigues, plotting and wrongdoings of the Medicis%u2014of the age in itself.I kicspH Pncirnri gO Odb'\%u2018Ciao%u2019 to the still bewildered younger guards, and made my way out past the Michaelangelo, through a courtyard with a Verrocchio statue, wondering meanwhile how I could have ever wanted to live during the Renaissance.July 13,1978, PHOENIX, Page 15