L’ANIMA DEI LUOGHI
The Soul of the places

“In ancient Greece, places such as crossroads, springs, wells, woods and the like, had specific qualities and specific personifications: gods, demons, nymphs, daimons and if someone lacked the awareness about all of this, was careless about the figures who lived at the crossroad or in the wood, was insensitive toward places, he or she could be in serious danger and could become possessed by them. Let’s consider, for example, nymphomania: the nymphs or Pan could overcome the traveller. Therefore it was necessary to be aware of what was happening, of what spirit, what sensibility or what imagination was overseeing a particular place, or how psyche, the soul,
resonated with the place where one was.
It’s important to become aware of what places “contained”, held-inside,
hat they were in-habited by. Each place had an intimate, peculiar quality.
This in, the inner reality of the place, is the soul of the place”

James Hillman, Carlo Truppi, “L’anima dei luoghi”, ed. Rizzoli