Giulianzo's Plato’s Academy of Florence and the Confraternity of the Magi discussion

They come into the classroom, silently. While they survey quickly, they chat among themselves in a foreign tongue that nobody else can understand. They sit down, silent again.

One sits buy a girl in the back row. She's young, and looks intelligent to the foreigners. Two or three of them surround her and watch her as she takes notes.

The teacher continues lecturing, ignoring the outsiders. She acknowledges their presence, but nothing more.

The girl is nervous. She feels that she is being watched - she is right, after all: the strangers watch her every move.

"Take out your workbooks," the teacher said.

The girl reached under her seat, feeling for her notebook, but instead grasping a shoe. She

looked around, searching for the workbook that should've been under her desk. Nothing.

The foreign teachers were sitting there, looking straight ahead.

Who could these people be? she asked herself, I haven't heard anything from the school.... Last summer, she had gone on a trip to China over the summer, and in the winter, some students came to her school - they sat in the class like this. Was this another exchange program? No, it can't be. Last time, she had heard about it months in advance - they had classes about Chinese culture and language... but nothing this time.

The teacher called her name:

"Miss Jones," she said, "workbook."

Her mouth was dry and wet at the same time. She managed to shakily whisper, "I don't know... Where.... It... It's gone, Mrs. Roberts... I..."

She saw her teacher make a mark next to her name in the gradebook. "Come sign for loss of materials," Mrs. Roberts.

She rose slowly, unsteady, pushing down on the desk to keep her balance. Staring at the floor, she managed to shuffle her way to the front of the room, where the teacher pushed a form to her. "Right here, Miss Jones."

She picked up a pen and was about to mark out her signature when she noticed that it was not the usual missing materials form. It was

, rather, a piece of paper with the word "VOID" scrawled across it in a most messy manner.

Not trying to interrupt the class, Julia Jones caught Mrs. Roberts' attention, and showed her the 'void' paper.

"Miss Jones," she sighed, "When will you ever learn?"

"But, Miss Roberts, I–"

"No 'buts', Julia!" the class giggled at that, "

"Sign THIS paper, please, and now."

"But-"

"Sign it or I'll have you sent to detention for insubordination."

Reluctantly, Julia picked up a pen and began to slowly scratch a J onto the paper. The visitors looked up at her intently.

She stared back, but only for a moment. Mrs. Roberts was watching her, she could tell, and her face said sign the paper or else.

Julia finished her first name, but she could still feel the gaze of the visitors on her back as she began her surname, and then return to her seat.

As she was about to sit down, the bell rang. She looked down at her watch. It was only 9:20. They had half an hour left in the period. She furrowed her eyebrow and was about to say something when she went an intense squeeze on her arm. She tried to walk, but the grip was like steal.

By this time, all of the other pupils had exited the room, and Mrs. Roberts had slipped over to the door. Following the last student's exit, she quickly closed the door and locked it behind her.

"Now," she said, "Ms. Jones, the reason we have these visitors here with us today is

because, apparently, you have done something terribly wrong. And I mean worse than not bringing your books to class." She always had that terrible sense of 'humor'.

But Julia had no idea what she was talking about. Now that she had a moment to actually look at the visitors, she noticed that they were all wearing black suits with white shirts under, and ties. They looked very professional. Like government agency professional. Now Julia was getting worried.

She began to sweat. And her hand began to shake, but ever so slightly. The grip on her arm increased. That's when she realized that two very tall men, dressed the same as these others, were standing behind her. One was holding her arm. The other

had head hand positioned in such a way as to grab her if she could possibly escape the other man's grip.

"Ms. Jones," said one of the men, "do you recognize this photograph?" He withdrew a single picture from an envelope and set it on her desk.

"Why," she said, "it looks like me. Brown hair, green eyes, glasses. But I've never posed for a picture like this. And I don't recognize the background." In her mind, though, the sight of one building's outline set off a bell in her mind that signaled memories from last summer, when

she had visited Florence with her parents. She saw the burnt orange some of the cathedral and the golden doors of the Baptistery behind her.

But it wasn't the same. There was something... Different about the photograph. But she just couldn't put her finger on it...

"Brown hair, green eyes, glasses..." she repeated. Then she knew. Glasses! She had broken her glasses on the trip and had to get a new pair- a BLUE pair that wasn't her normal prescription. The girl in the picture had on the same black glasses she was wearing that very day.

"How?" she wondered, almost aloud. "How did they know I was in Florence? How did they come up with that photograph?"

"So she confesses," one of the men sitting commented.

"I did not confess to anything!" Julia exclaimed, "I don't even know what there is to confess of!" She would continue to rant but one of the men had already gagged her and she could no longer speak.

Her hands, though, were free, so she grabbed her glasses and smashed them over the picture, then began kicking.

One of the men standing behind her jerked the gag down from her mouth. "I had on blue glasses in Florence! This isn't me! This can't be me! It's someone else, I swear!!!"

He rolled his eyes and jerked the gag back over her mouth.

She continued screaming nonetheless. Eventually, the teacher got so annoyed with her ceaseless meaningless shrieks that she slapped her.

"I've been waiting for years to do that."

Though the gag muffled some sound, the foreigners could make out a scream of "You didn't know me years ago! None of you did!!!"

"Stupid girl," chorused multiple voices in the room.

"Just admit it!!" Mrs. Roberts said.
"What?" Asked Julia. She was still unsure, and her voice was muffled so it sounded like ''whaaaaa".
"That you can travel though time!"

There was no sound for a while after that.

Julia's head was spinning. She peered down at the photograph again. Now she knew what was out of place! It was the building! While she was in Florence, another building had been in front of the one that was so clearly defined in the picture. This picture must have been take before that building was constructed!

And, yes, the façade of the cathedral was different - and there were no lamp posts. And though she was in modern clothing, the other women were in brightly colored dresses and the men in capes and breeches.

They took the gag off of her mouth.

"So Ms. Jones," said Mrs. Roberts, interrupting her train of thought, "what have you to say for yourself? Did you indeed travel through time?"

"I... I don't know," she said. "Why, time travel is impossible! Think of the grandfather paradox! Impossible, I tell you! So how then could I have done it?"

"You could consider the fact that maybe all history already happened, and so your going back in time was meant to happen..." Mrs. Roberts looked her in the eye, "And, indeed, how did you do it?"

Julia was still dumbfounded. She hadn't really thought of Florence since she went on the trip, and the World Literature class she was in when they read parts of The Decameron.

"I...I don't know!" The hesitation vanished, and she exclaimed with conviction, "I did NOT travel back in time. This is a trick. It must be. You simply photoshopped my image into a painting of Renaissance-period Florence and brought it here to see my reaction. I'm on television, right? You're filming this and showing the world?"

"You think this is some type of joke?!" Mrs. Roberts demanded. Then, to the men behind her, "Take her away."

And that was all she remembered.

She woke up in an odd dress with loads of wires and knots encasing her. She thought that they had bound her up, but after considerable fiddling with them, she drew the conclusion that they were restrictions of her dress.

It was not just her in this dress; all of the women around her were clad in similar garments. She looked around. Where was she?

In church.

The monotonous tone of a priest reciting: "Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria..."

That sparked her realization.

But who delivered a mass in Latin - in America? Maybe in Europe...

She knew there were probably some Catholic churches in the U.S. that did, but not in her town. So where in the world could she be? Where would everyone speak in Latin and wear such ridiculous clothing? This was not present day. It could not be present day.

Maybe a Ren faire. She had been to one of those before. But this was so much more authentic.

She decided to step out of the church to see for sure.

The streets had been unpaved, the tall buildings taken down or hidden. This was very extravagant.

And she could tell that she was in Florence. Though the cathedral had a different façade, the orange dome was greatly visible (she had just exited it), and the Baptistery was just across the way, its golden doors gleaming in the sunlight.

People in strange costume roamed around the streets.

This can't be a Ren faire...

She tried to think of what had happened before she got to the cathedral, but her mind was blank, her memories fuzzy. How in the world did she get here?

She remembered not having materials for class. And people in suits. And a photo. But that was all.

The face of one women walking down the street, though, made her turn around. Her eyes grew big and she pinched herself, hoping to awaken from the dream she must be in. It did nothing to help, though, and the woman approached her.

"Ms. Roberts?" she said faintly.

"Come?" She asked in Italian, "Chi è Mrs. Roberts? Mi chiamo Simonetta Vespucci."

A bit away, Julia heard someone yelling "Simonetta, dove stai?! Ho bisogno della mia Venere!!"

"Huh?" she asked in English, for though the girl had taken some Italian, she eventually transferred to Spanish, then Portuguese, then Chinese, then Japanese, then French and, finally, German. That was the language she felt she was best at, although she did not yet have any fluency with which to support that conclusion.

A man with sandy hair came running towards the two of them, and the woman shrieked and began to run again. Behind the man in sandy hair came one with darker hair, who was yelling, "Ho vinto la giostra per te, Simonetta!"

Now, Julia was in the middle of the piazza in some era which she was not so sure of, with people yelling in a language which she did not understand very well. What was she to do?

She looked around, and, in the distance, saw a face she recognized, although she knew not from where.

She made towards the face in the crowd, who seemed to be staring at her. Once she was halfway there, she saw a mob of people running down the street. The person in front was yelling, "SIMONETTA! POSSIAMO ESSERE RAGIONEVOLE!" and a another person behind him was yelling, "Lasciare il Botticelli dipinge la tua bella visa!"

Julia didn't understand any of it at all. The Italian came out so rapidly and fluently that she barely had time to understand it. She looked to the sky, then to the ground. Everything was normal, but everything was so, so different.

"No, non vo'!" A woman's voice called. The crowd split, and the woman from before stood, smiling like a child, in front of the golden doors to the Baptistery. "Lascimi, voi uomini ricchi. Non vo' vostro sospiri amorosi più. Sono una donna rispettabile."

The mob of men ran up to her, and one of them walked up and kissed her cheek. "Ebbene, mia Simonetta. Mi limito accontentarsi di Fioretta Gorini."

The woman slapped him, with a look of non amusement on her face.

Julia had no idea what to do. She couldn't comprehend the language, but the tones of voice didn't seem to be getting any friendlier, so she did the only thing that seemed sensible- she ran! She heard the pounding feet of a person- or people- following her.

And just as she turned a corner, a tall man in a maroon dress-like thing stood in front of her. "Di dove pensi andare?..." he asked her. Where do you think you're going?