There is an expression in the Roman language, genius loci, “the spirit of a place.” It has acquired a modern, figurative sense in the realm of landscape and architecture—a characteristic atmosphere. But its meaning is rooted in a literal, supernatural sense—the guardian spirit that protects a place.
I try to describe Rome to you without resorting to the clichés and hyperbole that pour from the reservoir of what I have read and heard and seen on television:
majesty • power • glory • history • grandeur • richness • pageantry • eternal • holy • baroque • legendary • magical • quality of light • gardens • pines • fountains • bridges • piazzas • obelisks • staircases • columns • ruins • basilicas • vistas • she-wolf • Romulus and Remus • shepherds • kings • Sabines • Etruscans • Latins • Horatii • republic • empire • consuls • tribunes • emperors • pontiffs • arches • aqueducts • government • law • language • alphabet • Caesars • czars • Kaisers • patricians • plebeians • cardinals • princes • popes • councils • treaties • wars • triumphs • slaves • barbarians • sacred • profane
Every word is the focus of a story I long to tell you. I have collected hundreds more. How shall I make you understand this place without resorting to landscapes drawn in words, full of these familiar features?
You peer into your cup. “Would you like another cappuccino? Or are you ready to get going?”
I begin again with an invocation: Animate me, genius loci Romae. Sanctify my words, split me open and read the truth written in my entrails.
I can see that you think I have lost my mind.
Here is my spring, the source of my delight, the moment in which I always fall in love with Rome again: You and I walk through a rabbit warren of narrow streets, the medieval city. We turn a corner; before us, a 700-year-old church. (Or perhaps we face a fountain, a temple, an arena. It is all the same.)
The look in your eyes says, “I never thought…I couldn’t have imagined….”
I do not possess the words to ask you, “Can you feel that this place has been waiting here for you your entire life, as it waited for me for a hundred lifetimes before I was born? Do you hear the echo of the millions of feet that have walked in every step you now take?”
The city is full of faces that hide behind cameras, faces that stare with boredom at the teeming, overwhelming multiplicity of wonders.
But in your eyes, love, a glimmer of spirit.
Author’s note: The task was to write about love: Describe falling in love with something, and “describe the object of your affection in a way we can see and hear and experience ourselves….” I’m not sure I have captured the genius of this assignment. I fall in love with Rome every time I go there, but it’s a challenge to come up with something to say about it that hasn’t already been written a thousand times before.
You may have glanced off the edge of the assignment again, but I find it very clever. Took me reading it twice to fully catch the back and forth nature and how they were threaded together, but I like it! Clearly you have something to say about Roma, and you are not done yet. This could definitely be expanded.