I'm actually looking for another street when I turn intothe Via Tornabuoni, named for the Tornabuoni family                    and specifically its patriarch, Giovanni, banker and patronof the arts in Florence, where the street named after him            is located and in which I am now thinking of neither Giovanni            nor his family but of the word "Tornabuoni" itself, which means"good turn" of the type that Wellesley College professor                    Katharine Lee Bates took in 1893 when she and some otherteachers were summering in Colorado and decided to hire            a wagon and go all the way to the top of Pikes Peak, where            she found herself very tired, though "when I saw the view,"Bates says, "I felt great joy. All the wonder of America                    seemed displayed there." When Bates got backto her hotel room, she wrote the famous opening lines            to "America the Beautiful," which was published two weeks            later and sung to tunes people already knew, notably "AuldLang Syne." Another meaning of "good turn"                    is to do someone a favor. "I slept and dreamt that lifewas joy," says Tagore. "I awoke and saw that life            was service. I acted and behold, service was joy." What does            that mean, though? Service could meandishing up meals at the soup kitchen or escorting the blind across busy                    intersections, but what is not service as long as it bringsjoy to others? One of Naomi Ginsberg's letters to her son            reads, "Get married Allen don't take drugs love, your Mother."            Allen, thanks for not listening to your mom. You did the worlda favor by just being yourself and writing those                    great poems. "The best minds of my generation . . .loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking visionary            indian angels who were visionary indian angels . . . . Dreams!            adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole boatloadof sensitive bullshit! . . . Real holy laughter in the river!                    They saw it all." Wait, I'm lost again. Where'sthe street I'm looking for? Yet here is the church of Santa Maria Novella            and its Tornabuoni chapel with Ghirlandaio's grand cycle            of frescos depicting the life of Mary. In one frescoshe's marrying Joseph as the other suitors break their sticks and raise                    their hands in anger, and no wonder:how dishy she is! "She is of an attractive            and ideal height," said Lorenzo de Medici, "the tone            of her skin fresh but not glowing, her demeanor gravebut not proud, sweet, and pleasing, without frivolity or fear."                    Then Jesus is born. He's a baby. He doesn't know anything,yet he knows everything: that we die, that the world            is as beautiful as ever even when we're no longer in it.            Even now you see women as lovely as Mary in the streetsof Florence and babies as wise as Jesus—in any street,                    really, in any town. The Tornabuoni Chapel is open every day.Anybody can walk in and look at these works of heart-stopping beauty.            You don't even have to believe in God, just miracles.