I’m chewing red peppercorns beneath a pepper-tree, outside the house of the 19th century merchant Stamatios Proios. In a niche of the exterior wall, there’s a painting by the Florentine Benozzo Gozzoli, who painted the fresco "The Journey of the Magi" at the Palazzo Medici Ricardi of Florence. The arrival of the Byzantines at the Council of Ferrara in 1439. A grand procession. The Patriarch of Constantinople and John VIII Palaiologos, adorned with crowns are depicted on gold-plated horses. Kavafis mentions the stones as fake, possibly coloured glass. However the gifts of the Byzantines towards the West defined the Renaissance.