XXV/2 The gesture of 'figs' which is Vanni Fucci's parting blasphemy is still alive and well in many parts of the world. The sexual connotations come from a punishment imposed by Barbarossa on those who had humiliated his daughter: he made them suck a fig from the vagina of a she-mule. The special relevance to Pistoia is that the city had a high tower built topped by huge marble arms projecting in the direction of Florence and making this same gesture. Here I have paralleled the Italian sign with its rough English equivalent, the poking out of the tongue with its similar vulva associations. The head is, in outline, the mirror image of Vanni Fucci's fist: this hints at the transformation to come and seems to identify the whole personality with the gesture of derision, and also continues the mirroring aspect of the previous illustration. On a wall (perhaps of the aforementioned tower) behind appears a `poster' taken from the 'Sun' newspaper (c. 1980) showing a crude placard which depicts another obscene and vulva-related gesture. The text (`No to Red Robbo') refers to a trade-union troublemaker. The yellowing with age of the cutting (after a couple of years on my studio wall) helps its `decollaged' look. It is surrounded by pseudo-graffiti with the same sexual connections. The interior text comes from the same page of A Human Document as that about copulation in V/1. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.