Florentines, round one

The puzzle falls into four panels, neatly buttoned together. It comes in two boxes, lined with purple-and-violet or violet-and-purple tissue paper, each (as I discovered) corresponding to exactly half the puzzle. If the halves had been mixed, I'd still be working on this.

And almost every square inch of all four panels is bustling with Florentines.

Galileo, we've met. I've decided that the cherubic fellow in green, pointing heavenward, is Ficino. The man in the mason's apron must be Brunelleschi. The lady in the lower left has drifted out of Fellini.



They come from all centuries, looking martial or merry...







They are frolicksome...




...buccolic...



...and urbane...







I so love the way the artist-cutter uses line and color, to give the lady in green a little Juliet cap and one blue stocking and her partner's dress sway and shadow; to show the wind in the cyclist's face, and the cat made of rooftops in a tree.

Nine