The granary of the spirit

Solomeo, 25 August 2025

I am in love with books. I love them for the knowledge they bestow, for the fragrance they release, for the rustle of their pages turned, which seems to caress the soul. Like Voltaire, I have a fondness for ancient volumes, and I cherish the words of their authors, whose wisdom is confirmed by the long endurance of their thought. Montesquieu once observed that until we have read all the old books, there is no reason to prefer the new; and sincerely, if I could always decide upon my own time, nothing would delight me more than to walk through the beautiful park of Solomeo in the evening, at sunset, when the air is finer and the Spirit more inclined to wonder, strolling through what, to me, is a kind of paradise whilst reading passages from a beloved book. I cannot truly say which, among the many, is my most loved; yet it matters little, for any good book, as Montaigne believed, is the best provision for the human journey. And so, it is enough for me to hold a book—one that speaks directly to the heart, with simple words—where it is clear at once that the passage from the mind to the pen of the author was authentic.

A pleasant reading time, too, is in the morning, alone in my tower, before the day’s work starts with many encounters and duties. These are the moments made for books—or perhaps books were made for them. And when I descend into the depths of the thoughts of an ancient sage, I feel ennobled by his generosity in speaking with me, and I seem to find myself in the garden of a King, as my great master John Ruskin once wrote.

The first impression I recall, when as a young man I focused on the writings of Kant for the first time, was this: true reading becomes a dialogue, a succession of questions and responses. Petrarch thought the same, as did Niccolò Machiavelli. In reading a book, we are never alone, and we are safe—for solitude is among the greatest perils of the human condition. In this way the soul is nourished, just as grain has nourished, and continues to nourish, the bodies of nameless generations. The Emperor Hadrian knew it well when he said: “To build libraries is to construct public granaries, and to store reserves against the winter of the Spirit which, by many signs, I regret to say I see approaching”. It is precisely these great figures of the past who teach us, through their thought, the immutable laws and ever-renewing values of humanity—values all the greater for being simple, and within reach of all, mixing utile dulci, said Horace, while that other giant, Cicero, knew that nothing is lacking to the one who possesses a library and a vegetable garden.

Allow me to complete these reflections with a homage to a saint and philosopher, Augustine of Hippo: “The book is like the world; he who does not travel knows only a single page”. And so, behold me at last, in this evocative image: surrounded by books, enraptured by the wisdom that seems to pass into my soul, simply by being immersed among them.