– And how is your agency doing?

– I can’t complain. Of course, it could always be better…

– You’re a kind person, but, wow, you’re determined.

– I wasn’t like this in the beginning, believe me. You know how it is, you search for something blindly. Before graduating, I opened a studio with a friend who was already graduated. We worked on three or four projects. After that, an important figure from Bergamo gave me carte blanche to redesign his entire house.

– You could have continued.

– Yes, but there was the family company, there on Via Partigiani, covering designs, renovations, with my father helped by my brother, and the agency, with my mother, the real estate agency, born primarily for the buying and selling and renting of my father’s work.

I started on Via Partigiani and worked there enthusiastically until 2011, when my father passed away. That’s when I moved permanently to the agency.

I dove into it, but I was shy. It was my mother who weaned me off.

– Now, it’s you.

– No, don’t believe that, Mom is still there, and how. Of course, how should I put it…

– … she delegated a lot…

– Let’s put it that way.

– Instead, the name… I always wanted to ask you, but then I kept forgetting every time.

– What do you want to know?

– The two words go well together, they sound good, but thinking about it, one is English, the other, what language is it…

– What do you think?

– Well, I don’t know. It’s accepted without question, I’d say. Because they sound good together. But, as for meaning, I just can’t figure it out.

– It’s a very curious story, very, very curious. You might almost think it’s made up, but it really happened just as I’m about to tell you.

– What language is “Alma”?

– Well, it could – I say, could – be Spanish, then it would sound like “Soul-residence,” that is, stretching it a bit, “Residence of the Soul.”

– Evocative. But is it really like that? Did you intentionally mix Spanish and English?

– No, not intentionally. Let’s say it just ended up that way.

– Ah, but how did it really happen?

– Wait, a bit more patience. There’s another possibility. It might not be Spanish but Latin.

– Goodness, who knows anymore. Only someone who still goes to classical studies, up in Città Alta.

– Exactly. However, it’s there. But confidentially, they explained it to me too. “Alma” has the etymology of “alimantare,” “to nourish.” Alma Tellus, the earth that nourishes, feeds everyone and everything.

– Beautiful, really beautiful.

– For example, of a goddess, it was said: “Alma Venus,” meaning “Beneficent Venus.”

– Well, it fits perfectly. The residence, your home that nourishes you, that is beneficial, with you, your loved ones. But don’t you think that in our day, very few people understand this anymore, now even I didn’t understand it, and like me, the others.

– You mean…

– I mean: it sounds good, but understanding is another thing. Perhaps, it was too refined, too sophisticated….

– No, no. You’re wrong because all of this came to light later, gradually.

– Meaning?

– “ALMA” were the initials of my brother – Alessandro – and mine – Marzia. At most, Ma. Get it?

– Oh, wow. But then…

– …then a story came up, unbelievably, something we hadn’t thought of. And now, we value it. It sounds good. But it also says something good.