At the beginning of the story, Dino Buzzati imagines that a nineteenth-century abbot, «with concise and very clear accounts», speaks of «a wondrous vision» upon beholding the old wood; in a footnote, the author observes how some men grasp the secrets of the woods, perceiving them by «nature», while others will never possess this sensitivity,

and will pass impassive (...) alongside the tenebrous forests, without even suspecting what goes on inside

. Communion with the trees, the capacity to grasp their magic, belongs to children; as Bernardo explains—the tree-genie who took upon himself the burdensome task of conversing with adults—

at a certain age all of you, men, change. Nothing remains of what you were as children. You become unrecognizable

. Adulthood causes one to lose the quality of feeling part of the whole, of playing in the woods alongside the animals, of understanding the birdsong, of perceiving and distinguishing the grand, multicolored orchestra of the forest’s sounds. Since adults will never love nature, the genie Bernardo became friends with the old owner, persuading him to leave the old wood untouched. What an ordeal to spend evenings in long games of cards, in tedious conversations, while

through the window, along with the scent of most precious resins, drifted the deep voice of his brothers, singing carefree

! The situation changes when the old owner dies and the new master arrives. Procolo, a retired colonel, is a rigid, somber, solitary man, impervious to any communion with the woods, which he views merely as an opportunity for exploitation. It is not that he is greedy; he is simply a petty soul, and how can one who lacks generosity ever find pleasure in the rustlings and scents of the woods? He allies himself with the wind Matteo to bend the tree-genies and force them to work for him in exploiting the forest; he kills the magpie that stands sentinel over the house, only to plunge into the silence of the night, locked within his nightmares. Wretched and wicked, he seeks to rid himself of young Benvenuto, the heir to the wood and his ward; with the aid of the wind Matteo, he does not hesitate to abandon the boy in wild tracts of the forest, where Benvenuto surely would have died. He fails, believing that no one knows of his murderous intent. But when he ventures into the depths of the forest,

the birdsong fades, the squirrels and dormice flee, silence settles upon the boughs, and at times ominous storm clouds even appear in the sky. (...) Evidently he struck a discordant note in that joyful corner of the woods; evidently trees and birds could not endure him

. Even his shadow abandons him, so disgusted is it by the barrenness of its lifelong companion. Procolo is alone. And yet, little by little, reluctant and surprised, during a sleepless night Procolo recognized the sounds of the forest. He counted fifteen of them, meticulously noting down each one.

But two or three times, that night, there was also true silence, the solemn silence of ancient woods, incomparable to any other in the world, which very few men have ever heard

. And the goodness that dwells in all human beings is finally liberated from the performance of self, from that «false self» that had accompanied him throughout his life. Procolo dies, yet he is saved.

Buzzati’s tale can be interpreted as a fascinating metaphor for the human soul, where the woods are not Dante’s «dark wood» but a kind of Shinto paradise in which trees are benevolent genies and the winds are hostile, dark forces: a depiction, in short, of the intricate tangle of consciousness. I prefer to interpret The Secret of the Old Woods literally, as a great fable of the forest, devoid of ulterior meanings. Raised by parents who loved the mountains and made me spend long summers amidst the greenery of the Alps, walking among the trees was always part of my life, without my understanding why. Reading Buzzati’s tale made me understand my passion. And it is precisely for this reason that I juxtapose it with Petrarch, fully aware of how daring such a connection is. When Francesco Petrarch recounts his walks in Provence and Tuscany, I recognize the feeling that stirs within me as I, too, make my way through the forest: the longing for detachment from the frenzy of the world, finding oneself again, solitary, silent, immersed in physical activity, permeated by the vitality of the trees, conscious of the bond connecting all living beings. Often, wandering freely and aimlessly amidst the lights and sounds of the forest, the lines of Canto XXXV of the Canzoniere come to mind:

alone and pensively the most deserted fields/I pace and measure out with slow and tardy steps,/and keep my watchful eyes alert to flee/wherever human imprint marks the sand