I recently stumbled upon an essay by the writer Italo Calvino, who described beautifully the Italian siesta; the hushed hours of the afternoon. So perfect is the essay, entitled "The Silence of the City," that I feel as if I've been illustrating it unknowingly, for the past five summers.
"Piazzas, for silence, are the ideal place to dwell; it can stretch, expand on all sides, curl up around the kiosks and memorial columns, lurk beneath marquees, crouch on the steps of the churches, cram niches, and the tracery of rose-windows. But the greatest pleasure silence knows is not in taking possession, but in duration, the pause it forces on time, the weight it manages to exercise on things by lying heavily on them. Its aim is not to be a flood, but a lake; and so it favors piazzas, those dry lakes that bathe in the silence and soak it up and contain it in harmony of their jagged outlines."
Piazza Delle Morte