The Sentimental City

Italo Calvino’s seminal book, Invisible Cities is a collection of dreamlike short stories about cities visited by the traveller Marco Polo. One of these stories is about the city of Zaira, where he recalls the longing of romantic places one cannot forget.

Calvino writes: ‘I could tell you how many steps make up the streets rising like stairways, and the degree of the arcades’ curves, and what kind of zinc scales cover the roofs; but I already know this would be the same as telling you nothing. The city does not consist of this, but of relationships between the measurements of its space and the event of its past: the height of a lamppost … the height of that railing and the leap of the adulterer who climbed over it at dawn.

As this wave from memories flows in, the city soaks up like a sponge and expands. The city, however does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lighting rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations and scrolls.’

Whether you live in Zaira, Zeerust or Zondernaam; let this fanciful month of February evoke the nostalgic – reminisce about the bygone and create new and lasting memories in your milieu.

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