The marble standing at the door of Palazzo Vecchio has been there since 1910, and most of the people photographing it have no idea. Michelangelo’s David left the square in 1873, moved on rails through the streets to the Galleria dell’Accademia, where it now stands under a purpose-built skylight at the end of a ticketed queue. What replaced it is a copy by Luigi Arrighetti, set in the exact spot the original held for 369 years.

Two words are legible on the granite from the pavement: SVATÝ VÁCLAVE. Saint Wenceslas, vocative case, the form you use when you are speaking to someone. The rest of the inscription runs around the pedestal and finishes as a request. Duke of the Czech land, our prince, do not let us perish, nor those who come after us. The line comes from a hymn that was already old in the fourteenth century, and it is carved on a monument finished in 1924, which tells you most of what you need to know about how Czechs have used this saint.