Well I'm home from Florence now. Nice work today, EasyJet. It's been a long day, starting with a visit to the Accademia gallery first thing this morning to see Michelangelo's David. The rest of the gallery pales next to that masterwork - the Uffizi gallery is much better, positively mind-blowing, the ground floor of the Bargello gallery is stunning and the Santa Croce basilica is sublime. Back to David, as fine a work of art as has ever been produced, the theme thoroughly biblical, thoroughly Christian, beautifully presented and displayed, no need to jostle for a great view of him despite the crowds. Florence is all crowds. It was clear that a large number of tourists were sufficiently obsessed with David's elegant genitalia and excellently-muscled buttocks to persuade them to get as many selfies as possible featuring themselves next to these impressive attributes of his, pointing at them and pulling appropriately eye-popping faces. Come to think of it, in four days of taking in hundreds, if not thousands, of religious works of art, I've seen some magnificently-benippled breasts, arses as pert as you like and even a fair number of lovely external ladies' front bottoms. Gosh, and so many naked putti! Oddly, only once did I see a crucified Jesus sans strategic loincloth, his family jewels proudly on view, and that was on a small wooden crucifix attributed to none other than Michelangelo. Mischievous fellow he was, I reckon, a twinkle in his eye. He even managed to annoy his patrons, those awful Medicis, by depicting Bacchus in a sculpture as a somewhat tipsy student-type rather than the somewhat effeminate, more usual depiction of him. I thought that the Bacchus was a towering masterpiece and concluded that those pope-generating Medicis had no taste.

The thing is that depicting religious figures as real human beings, naked, vulnerable, flawed, often less than well-endowed, frequently looking rather vacant as they gaze heavenward with clasped hands, has been a sine qua non of religious art. They say that art conceals art, but great art also conceals ridicule. And you can bet your life that the selfie brigade of today have had their equivalent all down the ages. So don't give me all that precious stuff about ridiculing the Prophet. Belief in impossible deities and their hangers-on (all those bloody angels!) is highly irrational and has served humanity extremely badly. Trying to protect those beliefs, or sheltering them from the disrespect and ridicule that they so richly deserve, is a waste of energy. There's probably no God, so stop worrying and enjoy yourself instead!

But the art is different...