1 July 2025  V Canto and the Scent of HeritageThe Italian perfume house V Canto, a brand of the Terenzi family, traces its inspiration to the soul of a place: the medieval Castello di Gradara. Steeped in legends and immortalized in Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, this castle and its surroundings are the poetic and historical foundation for the Anime del Castello (The Soul of the Castle) collection. Each perfume in this unisex line reimagines elements of Italian cultural legacy—craft, architecture, painting, poetry—into olfactory experiences.One of the newest arrivals in Austria, Ceraiuolo, is a tribute to the ancient candle makers who once worked in the shadow of Gradara's walls. In medieval times, the ceraiuolo shaped wax into light, performing a quiet craft that merged devotion, art, and everyday utility. The perfume Ceraiuolo pays homage not only to this artisanal tradition but also to the Terenzi family's own roots in candle-making. Its layered composition evokes melted wax, sacred warmth, and ritual: from vibrant top notes of saffron, rose, and lotus, to a glowing heart of vanilla, honey, and carnauba wax, grounded in cypress, oud, and Tuscan wood. The fragrance becomes a metaphor for how memory and tradition can be transformed into something enduring and radiant. When Perfume Meets Painting, Poetry, and ArchitectureCeraiuolo is not alone in drawing on Italy's cultural archive. Several other perfumes in the Anime del Castello collection also illustrate how historical figures and creative legacies can be interpreted through scent.The fragrance Guercino is named after the Baroque painter Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, known as Il Guercino. In Italian Journey, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe praised the artist's "gentle moral grace" and "free grandiosity"—qualities captured in the fragrance's composition and its ivory-hued bottle. Guercino is a convergence of visual and literary admiration, a scent inspired not only by the painter's palette but also by Goethe's reflective words. It becomes a dialogue between the German and Italian cultural spheres, revealing how cross-border inspiration can manifest in unexpected artistic forms. Architecture takes center stage in Brun, dedicated to Filippo Brunelleschi, the pioneer of Renaissance architectural principles. His revolutionary dome in Florence and discovery of linear perspective changed the visual language of space. The perfume Brun channels the structured elegance and visionary ambition of his work—turning proportion, innovation, and harmony into a perfume narrative. Another example is B.B., which honors Basinio Basini, a court poet under Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta at Gradara. In this perfume, Basini's blend of flattery, propaganda, and refined lyricism—described as a form of proto-influencer communication—becomes a sensory homage. The fragrance reflects the strategic artistry of Basini's work, merging the cultural politics of his time with today's awareness of influence and image-making. The Perfumer as Historian of the SensesAt the heart of V Canto's concept is the belief that perfume can summon the past—not just as a memory, but as an artistic act of reconstruction. Like the so-called Proust Effect, where a scent evokes a vivid recollection, these perfumes function as portals. Yet unlike passive memory, the perfumer actively reimagines historical moments, atmospheres, and lives through raw materials and composition.Perfume, in this context, becomes a medium that bridges personal emotion and cultural memory. Whether through a whisper of wood from a Tuscan forest or the sweetness of Italian honey, these scents are attempts to bring back what history has left behind—not just to remember, but to feel it again. Image: This symbolic, AI-generated image evokes the atmosphere of a medieval workshop. A contemporary artisan is absorbed in the ancient craft of candlemaking, carefully pouring golden molten wax from a weathered pitcher with practiced precision. Photo: © Fashion.at generated with Imagen by Google AI Studio. |