Aeneas's Choice

According to Don Luigi Maria Epicoco, Virgil’s *Aeneid* lends itself to being a key for understanding the present. “Some decisive moments in Aeneas’s life and aspects of his personality seemed to me particularly suited to shedding light on the time we are living through.” Thus, after rewriting those passages in narrative form, the author shares with us a broader reflection on the underlying theme, with the aim of “reconnecting the imagination with current history and with the possible choices and opportunities opening up before us.” Choosing Aeneas thus becomes a rereading of a foundational work of our culture and, at the same time, a tool for interpreting the contemporary world. A lens through which to reflect on the present, which “is short on hope and needs to look toward and believe in the spring awaiting us beneath the snow of the winter we are living through.” Rizzoli