On the Redoubtable Janet Ross by Ben Downing There it was: Poggio Gherardo! Or no, maybe not—it was hard to tell. I was in a tiny Fiat with my friend Grazia, buzzing around the narrow, winding roads of Settignano, a few miles from Florence. We were looking for a particular hilltop house, and for a tantalizing second we thought we’d caught a glimpse of it, before the road snaked again. Grazia is the kindest of friends but an alarmingly impulsive driver, so I didn’t encourage her to make what surely would have been a U-turn at full speed. Instead we kept going, and after a few wrong turns we fetched up at the gate of Poggio Gherardo.