CORTE DI CATERINA
GEMMA PURA VANILLA AND PEACH Caterina, as a child, walks through the winding and hidden streets of a deserted Florence. Between two buildings she sees a boy she has never seen before, Edmond, who takes her hand and bring her to a small island in the centre of Arno River. He looks at her putting a finger before his mouth, takes some scented seeds out of his pocket and throws them with care into a hole in the ground. Immediately the island is covered by luxuriant plants and yellow flowers, similar to orchids. The pods get brown and dry and fall at her feet, enveloping her in a sweet, unknown perfume: Vanilla. She wakes up and she is disappointed discovering it was just a dream, not knowing that in a distant future, another king would have decided to sow that plant, made suitable to cultivation thanks to the intuition of a young slave named Edmond D’Albus.