Gallerie dell’Accademia is the Venetian art gallery Marion Taylor visits while retracing in imagination the journey Patrick Hazlewood and Tom Burgess once made together. Its paintings give her a concrete focus for memories of the men and sharpen the sense that the city holds a history from which she was absent.

Marion’s Visit

Years after the events of 1958, Marion travels to Venice alone as part of an organised opera trip to Verona. During her visit, she seeks out the Carpaccios at Gallerie dell’Accademia and spends a long time looking at The Arrival of the English Ambassadors. The paintings are not merely stops on a sightseeing itinerary: in the gallery, Marion pictures Patrick telling Tom about the work and Tom listening with a serious expression.

Memory and Significance

The gallery belongs to Marion’s effort to imagine the Venice she never shared with Tom. As she moves through the city, she repeatedly pictures the two men together; at Gallerie dell’Accademia, that imagined intimacy attaches to a particular painting and to Patrick’s knowledge of art. The scene brings Marion’s absence into focus: she can reconstruct the men’s closeness only as an observer, supplying the conversation and gestures she did not witness. Her visit forms part of a journey that proves to be a catalyst, leading her soon afterward to seek out Patrick and bring him back.