Where did he find things? ‘Everywhere; I mean, he didn’t feel his most comfortable in the English countryside, but he loved going to Tetbury. He made friends with the shopkeepers and he’d come back with car-boot loads, and you’d go, “Where are those going to go?” But it could be a market in France. His taste was totally eclectic. At art fairs, ‘he knew everybody and wanted to look at everything. I don’t have much patience for that kind of thing. We went past this stall full of Church stuff and he stopped, and I said, “At least we can move past this.” And no, he decided he wanted to collect chalices or something. I said, “Please, let’s move on.” I got quite cross. Honestly it was unstoppable.’ The collection of Belgian chocolate pots, at least 50 of them, was in the dining room. ‘I just thought we were going to get swallowed up by them!’
Manfredi grew up in Florence and loved history of art ‘from the moment he knew how to speak. A teacher recognised this. They used to get taken around the Uffizi in different classes. He was allowed to go with every class,’ she says, laughing, ‘It was his soul, really. I used to joke, and the children too, that he was so hopeless about most things. Memory, nonexistent, but in history of art, he could remember everything. I was in an art gallery in Texas and he knew where the pictures came from, anywhere in the world, he would know its provenance, what artist it was. He was an expert in old masters, first and foremost, and he learnt about modern and contemporary later on. You could not fault him. He knew it back to front, inside out. I’ve not ever met anyone like that, ever. And so I respect that most things were bought for a reason and a knowledge of what they were.’
