I have found a Sea of Steps. Not in Wells Cathedral, England, but here in le Marche in PALAZZO ALALEONA. In fact there are two; the elegant, undulating, wide stone stairs, shipped from Rome bearing evidence of a grand past and leading to the piano nobile, and the scale di servizio, the servants' stairs, a narrow, almost vertical brick climb at the other end of the building, up and down which the staff would have scurried in their continuous task of keeping house. I feel two tides of history as I step on these worn treads, twin currents of Italian society flowing side by side, separated by walls and circumstance, brick and marble, dark and light. Cecilia loved the back stairs. I cannot decide, but I would leave both exactly as we found them.
