The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Carthago Delenda Est is a fragrance from Villa of the Mysteries, with Paula Pulvino credited as its perfumer. Its listed notes bring together calamus, fig, rose, labdanum, and styrax in a composition built around contrasting materials. Calamus contributes a cool, grassy character, while fig introduces fruit with a rounded, edible quality. Rose adds floral warmth, and labdanum and styrax give the blend a resinous foundation. Together, these notes create a fragrance that is fruity without relying on fruit alone, floral without becoming purely delicate, and resinous without losing the presence of rose and fig. Paula Pulvino is credited with composing a scent shaped by the tension between sweetness, freshness, floral warmth, and resin.
The unusual part sits in the overlap. Calamus can smell cool and grassy, while fig contributes a rounded fruitiness. Rose brings floral warmth, and labdanum adds a soft resinous depth. Styrax gives the composition another resinous accent, helping the materials feel connected rather than isolated. Fig and rose keep the blend from becoming exclusively resinous, while calamus prevents the fruit from defining the entire experience. The result is a fragrance that can be appreciated through its note interactions: fruit, petals, greenery, and resin each remain present.
The evolution
Carthago Delenda Est is built around a varied set of listed notes rather than one straightforward aroma. Calamus offers a cool, grassy quality, while fig contributes fruit. Rose supplies floral warmth, and labdanum and styrax provide resinous dimensions that deepen the overall composition. The relationship between these notes gives the fragrance a layered character: fig and rose introduce recognizable softness, while calamus adds a contrasting aromatic element. Labdanum and styrax keep the blend from reading as simply fruity or floral, creating a composition in which several materials share the focus. The scent can be explored through this balance of fruit, flowers, greenery, and resin.
Cultural impact
Carthago Delenda Est is a fragrance from Villa of the Mysteries, with Paula Pulvino credited as its perfumer. Its composition is presented through the listed notes of calamus, fig, rose, labdanum, and styrax. These materials create a varied fragrance profile by combining an aromatic note, fruit, floral warmth, and resinous elements. The title gives the scent a strong identity, while the note list invites attention to the contrast between its components. Rather than depending on a single recognizable family, the fragrance brings several distinct note groups into one composition and offers an exploratory way to experience its character.
The House
Villa of the MysteriesVilla of the Mysteries is an independent perfume house founded by Paula Pulvino in Brooklyn in 2015. Working from a brownstone studio, the house creates all-natural fragrances, a term it uses to describe its approach to perfumery. Its name refers to the ancient Roman villa outside Pompeii, whose surviving frescoes have become central to the house’s visual and narrative identity. Villa of the Mysteries presents perfume through a distinctly historical lens, connecting classical mythology, ritual, art, and transformation with contemporary fragrance composition.
The Creator
Paula PulvinoPulvino’s style is rooted in the aromatic vocabulary of Mediterranean fragrance making, with a particular focus on ingredients historically associated with perfumes and unguents. Her compositions favor a sense of material richness, drawing attention to spice, herbs, resins, oi…
