Milano, Milan, Lombardy, Italy

Over time, I have been called by many names.
But you may call me by the one that is truly mine: the House of a Hundred Secrets.
It is not that I try to hide them.
They reveal themselves only to those who are willing to take their time.
I keep them in surfaces marked by a time that is no longer here,
in the grain of wood that softly creaks beneath your steps,
in the slightly imperfect reflections of mirrors,
in the mouldings that trace the ceilings like the thoughts of those who lived within me before you - left there, suspended.
Outside, the city moves fast.
Streets cross, trams set the air and rails ringing, voices and sounds overlap and spread.
Inside me, everything softens.
Everything becomes calm, gathered, still.
Even sound changes: it turns gentle, like someone knocking softly before crossing a threshold.
Light drifts through the air, across the walls, settling on objects and surfaces.
Without ever invading, it accompanies.
As the hours pass, it shifts - in tone, in angle, in where it comes to rest - each time bringing a different detail into light.
In the same way, I open myself, but never all at once.
My rooms reveal themselves one after another, like the pages of a precious book, turned with care.
There is always something of me just beyond your gaze:
a corner, a perspective, a detail that draws you further in.
And so you move through me, without quite noticing when you began to feel that I was yours.
Stay a little longer.
I still have secrets to reveal.
Do not forget my name.