His Hat was as big as the Colosseum

The strangest thing happened in an outdoor coffee shop in Rome about two blocks from the Colosseum. It was my first day in Rome and I was in a hurry to get to the Colosseum before it got dark but at the last instant, with the Colosseum in sight I decided to have a cup of coffee at an outdoor cafe.

I sat down and ordered some coffee and immediately noticed that there was a man sitting with his back to me at the next table, and just like at a movie, his hat completely blocked my view of the Colosseum. I was going to ask him to move but then I found that by moving my table a little I could see around him.

I became fascinated by this simple fact, from where I sat his hat was exactly the same size as the Colosseum. It seemed so strange to me that this little insignificant hat, perhaps only one year old was able to completely block my view of a two thousand year old building. I kept looking back and forth from the building to the hat, and then he leaned back in his chair.

When he leaned back in his chair his hat became almost twice as big as the building, as a matter of fact it began to be possible to make a comparison of the Colosseum to just the hat band. Leaning back, his hat band was one third the size of the Colosseum. I posed this question to myself, “at what point away from my eye will the hat band be the same size as, and line up top and bottom with the Colosseum?” To answer this question I stood up from my chair went quietly over behind him and discovered that if I put my head just behind his head, about ten inches from his shirt collar, that his hat band at that point was exactly the same height as the Colosseum.

To line up my eye perfectly with his hat band it was necessary to support myself, and as I was bending over I unconsciously put my hands onto the back of his chair, and as ill luck would have it he suddenly leaned back, trapping my hands between the chair and his back.

I stood there, or rather crouched there for the longest moment, frozen in time. The waiter came and went giving me the strangest look. Finally he leaned forward releasing my fingers, and I fled.

This drawing measures 4.5” x 6.25”. It is drawn on tinted cold press watercolor paper with a black wax pencil. It is signed and dated on the border along the bottom, Richard Britell, August 13, 2001.