In 1973 the university of canterbury granted W.A. Sutton, ‘Bill', sabbatical leave – three-hundred days of freedom he called it – and he chose to spend all but thirty of those days in Italy.

From about the fifteenth to seventeenth century, Italy experienced a Renaissance – a rebirth of classicism and aesthetics that revitalised the country's literature, science and art, and made it a magnet for all manner of future devotees and dreamers.

Giovanni Canaletto (1697–1768) painted wondrously topographic views of Venice, which became so popular with English visitors on their Grand Tour that he temporarily shifted to London to be closer to his collectors' market. The romantic poets embraced Italy's allure, albeit with romantically tragic outcomes: two years in Italy were a great creative writing period for poet and revolutionary Lord Byron (1788–1824) before he died furthering the cause of Greek independence; Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) travelled around Italy, indulging his prolific literary and tempestuous personal life, before his untimely death in a boating accident near Livorno; and John Keats (1795–1821), who hoped Italy would revitalise his writing and improve if not cure his consumption, died in Rome, aged twenty-five. In 1895 the first Venice Biennale was held to promote new artistic trends, followed later by festivals for film, contemporary music and theatre. These events continue to keep Italy at the cutting-edge of the world's creativity today.

In 1973, Bill – scholar, innovative artist and admirer of the Renaissance principles of harmony and proportion – saw Italy not only as an encapsulation of his art learning, but also as a step to new insights. This was later well realised in Te Tihi O Kahukura (Citadel of the Rainbow God) and Sky (1976–7), a series of ten large paintings of Canterbury's skyline touched with Renaissance grandeur.