Zagara: A wistful scent on the cusp of jubilation

‘A garden for the blind.’ This is how Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, describes his backyard. The Prince is the protagonist in Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s novel, The Leopard. In this moment the Prince is surrounded by roses, magnolias, lemon myrtle, mint, and orange blossom wafts from a grove somewhere in the distance. The Prince’s stroll is a ruminative one, weighed down by overwhelming aromas and memories. Citrus notes remind him of having witnessed a fatally-wounded soldier use his last breaths to crawl into a lemon grove. Because in all its Sicilian beauty, The Leopard is set during a time of civil war and revolution. The nineteenth century, where the aristocracy will come to be replaced by new money. As the Prince brushes past Elysian scents, he is already nostalgic for that which has not, quite yet, been taken away.

I read this scene after spending an afternoon sniffing scents in a little shop-front. I came out with Santa Maria Novella’s Zagara Cologne. Opened in 1612, Santa Maria Novella is an Italian apothecary pharmacy specialising in complex fusions steeped in ancient remedies. Zagara is a Chypre-type fragrance where addictive floral citrus, jasmine, bergamot and blossom notes float in a fresh sweetness bound by woody oakmoss. The Prince’s Sicilian garden bottled in all its glory, complete with an ephemeral veil of melancholia.