Broken tour

o understand Max Grossman pay close attention to the words he chooses. He has the assertive confidence of a wronged man. "Early on," he says, reflecting on the prelude to his 39-month legal ordeal, "the guides red-flagged me. They saw me one too many times and targeted me for destruction."

Max Grossman is a 37-year-old doctoral candidate in art history at Columbia University in New York City. He has shifting eyes and a piercing gaze. Almost uniformly, Americans who know him laud his intellect and understanding of Italian art history. Those who find him pushy still acknowledge his hard-earned expertise.

But Americans are not Italians, and Grossman's problems began in the Tuscan city of Siena, renowned for its annual horse race Palio and considered among this country's medieval and Renaissance jewels.

The signs were clear... or are they? Matt Baglio

In January 2001, the Association of Tour Guides (AGT) for the city and province of Siena filed a criminal suit charging Grossman with "practicing as a tour guide without a tour guide license."

According to AGT Siena officials, he showed off the art and architecture of Siena not just to students, but also to "clients," most wooed through a personal website that offered private lessons and seminars. This is a job the tour guides claimed only they are allowed to do.

While the quarrel between Grossman and Siena tour guide officials was personal, a grudge match that hinged in part on Grossman's abrasive character as well as their own, it also underscored a festering rift between Italians licensed to explain their nation's cultural heritage to tourists and foreign nationals who want to do the same kind of work unlicensed and believe they are qualified and entitled to do so.

On another level it highlighted a nagging cultural divide between Italian tour guides, most of whom do not have university degrees, and intellectual foreigners convinced that their advanced academic training should allow them wide berth in the oral recounting of art history.

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