Poised between the chill of winter and the warmth of summer, spring is a time of fragrance, rain and wind, despair and hope. Spring, by its very nature, is restless. In order to understand spring, one must speak of festivals celebrating life reborn and revived light, observed by Greeks, Jews and – at Easter – Christians. But one must also speak of armies, merchants (who for centuries have waited for the seas to calm down to resume their trade), revolutions, legal rights, and conquests. Spring, however, above all relates to the Earth’s cycle, the equinox, the awakening of senses and bodies, flowers, herbs, insects, birds – an unsettling desire in which everything seems to tap into something more ancient and profound, perhaps the origins of the world, the primordial nature to which we are bound by biology. Spring tells a story of poignant nostalgia, of a time when we were at one with the world, sharing a sole rhythm and a common order of things.

Alessandro Vanoli is an expert on Mediterranean history.