The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Astronomo enters V Canto's Anime del Castello collection in 2025, composed by Paolo Terenzi. The name itself, astronomer, stargazer, the one who reads the sky, points to a particular posture: someone elevated, observing, not detached but clarified. There's a quietness to the premise, a sense of someone who has stepped back from noise and looked outward. Paolo Terenzi built the composition around that sense of elevation. It opens with grapefruit and Sorrento lemon sharpened by cardamom's clean heat, and that crisp clarity carries through the opening like cool air at altitude. The composition reads like a figure at a window in the early hours, watching light arrive.
The note structure tells the same story from a different angle. African cardamom, Bulgarian rose, Sicilian grapefruit, Sorrento lemon, and seaweed open with a brightness that reads almost celestial, a wide, clear-headed opening. Then the Italian aromatics arrive: juniper, bay leaf, rosemary, lavender. This isn't the Mediterranean of tourist brochures. It's the Mediterranean of someone who knows which herbs grow wild in the cracks of old fortress walls. The base, oakmoss, sandalwood, cedar, ebony, grounds the whole thing in something woody and contemplative. Tuscan elm at the bottom is the quiet surprise. It's a tree, not a scent fantasy.
The evolution
The opening is grapefruit and Sorrento lemon, sharpened by cardamom's clean heat. Bulgarian rose appears almost immediately but holds back, sitting beneath the citrus rather than competing with it. Then the seaweed does its quiet work. It doesn't smell like the beach. It smells cool and faintly saline, with a green undertone that the rosemary and bay leaf pick up and carry forward. The seaweed is a bridge between the bright citrus opening and the aromatic heart that follows, a note that grounds the composition in something mineral and atmospheric. As the composition settles, the Italian aromatics take over: juniper, lavender, rosemary, a touch of pink pepper for warmth. These herbs give the heart its character, dry and green, slightly bitter, faintly medicinal in the way only the best aromatic compositions manage.
Cultural impact
Astronomo reads as a quieter proposition within V Canto's catalogue, a composition that values observation over declaration. Its palette of citrus, seaweed, Italian aromatics, and deep woods gives it a contemplative weight that rewards close attention. The grapefruit and Sorrento lemon opening, the saline hush of the seaweed, the herbal gravity of juniper and rosemary, and the resinous depth of the oakmoss and Tuscan elm base all conspire to create something that sits comfortably in formal and intimate settings alike.
The House
V CantoV Canto is an Italian fragrance house founded by Paolo and Tiziana Terenzi as a distinct artistic expression within their family's historic Cereria Terenzi Evelino perfumery. The brand takes its name and creative direction from Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, specifically the fifth canto, transforming the poem's vivid imagery of virtues, vices, and human passion into wearable compositions. Headquartered in Gradara, a medieval walled town along Italy's Adriatic coast, V Canto operates from the very landscape that inspired Dante's timeless narrative of love, punishment, and redemption. Each fragrance in the collection bears a title drawn from the poem's rich lexicon, inviting wearers into an olfactory dialogue with Italian literary heritage. The house prioritizes dramatic, long-lasting compositions that unfold across multiple wearing phases, emphasizing depth and emotional resonance over conventional fragrance categories.
The Creator
Paolo TerenziWorking from a studio filled with rare essences and precious ingredients, Terenzi gravitates toward oud wood, ambergris, and benzoin resin, among other treasured materials. His creative ritual begins each morning with meditation before he gives free rein to instinct.
