The Vatican City is now on the UK's quarantine list announced by Grant Shapps yesterday afternoon. I was there at the time, savouring the once inconceivable pleasure of having the Vatican Museums almost to myself. In the Pinacoteca picture gallery I sat alone admiring the larger than life tapestries made from Raphael’s cartoons, Leonardo da Vinci’s deeply expressive St Jerome, and Caravaggio’s achingly poignant Entombment of Christ. 

Earlier I had wandered through the Sistine Chapel with about 30 others, a fraction of the usual number. Though the security guards, frustrated at having no crowds to herd about, still couldn’t resist getting on the microphone to shout at someone speaking to a friend.