“That’s a little hard to explain,” confessed Giancarlo, rubbing his chin. “Like everything else in Italy, the reasons are a little complicated. Italians have an odd sort of relationship with their church. You see, on the one hand, everyone there gets baptized, makes their first communion, gets confirmed, and gets married in the church. And then when they die, they all want to get buried by the church. It’s an important part of their lives. Italians know all the prayers and all the hymns and all the saints. They embrace all of that, and truly take it into their hearts. On the other hand, though, Italians hate hard-and-fast rules of any kind, especially when it comes to how they live their lives, so because of this they have this strange way of keeping the Church at arm’s length. Like I said, it’s a little hard to explain, but there are a lot of things like that in Italy. Everything is not always the way it seems. There are many shades of gray there and not so much black and white, if you know what I mean. In any case, I think if you really wanted to truly understand it, you would have to live there for a while.”

“That’s interesting,” said Carter after a moment’s contemplation. “So how about you? Are you a churchgoer?”

“No, not in a long time,” admitted Giancarlo with a harrumph. “I’m afraid that God and I haven’t exactly been on speaking terms for quite a while.”

Now it was Carter’s turn to chuckle.

“What’s so funny?” asked Giancarlo.

“I was just thinking that you’d better not let Mama Quinn hear you say that,” he said.

“Oh, why not?”

“Because she’ll drag you by the ear to confession, and then make you go to mass every day for a month!”

At that the two men shared a laugh.

“Well, your mother certainly sounds like a good woman,” said Giancarlo.

“Oh yeah, she’s tough,” he nodded.

“Most good women are,” said Giancarlo. “But they don’t always show it.”

With that he tapped his pencil against his notepad, letting Carter know that it was time to get back to work.

Later, when the lesson was over and it was time for Carter to be on his way, Giancarlo walked him to the front of the house and opened the door. Carter stepped out onto the stoop, where he paused for a moment and turned around.

“So what do you think, Professore,” he asked. “Would it really be worth my time to visit some of those churches, even when I know next to nothing about art?”