SMELLING THE WORLD

It shapes our lives, affects our health, generates memories and emotions: a journey around the world to discover our most enigmatic sense

WORLD | SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY | CULTURE | ECONOMY

Savigliano (Cuneo, Italy), Múses - Accademia Europea delle Essenze (European Academy of Essences), visitors to the museum can smell different fragrances beneath each of the bells.

Once considered an embarrassing throwback to our past, a primitive sense to be hidden or covered, our sense of smell is actually much more important than we could imagine. This sense underpins attraction, sensuality and the connections we feel with the world around us. Smells, perfumes and odours are always around us and condition our lives, our health and our memories often in ways that are evocative and personal. Smelling has always triggered emotions: smells make us laugh and cry, feel anxiety or appreciate what we are eating and drinking (our sense of taste is very closely linked to our sense of smell).

And they also convince us to spend a lot of money: worldwide the perfume business is worth more than 30 billion dollars. If there is one positive to come out of the tragedy of Covid-19, and the exponential increase in cases of anosmia and parosmia, it is a new focus on research into the sense of smell. Let’s try to understand a bit more about how our most intimate sense works.

Publications

National Geographic Italia (Italy) | National Geographic (Germany)

Awards

POY (Picture Of The Year) | World Report Award

Exhibition

MÚSES - European Academy of Essences in Savigliano (Cuneo, Italy)

Grasse (France), at the Robertet perfume company, freshly picked cabbage roses are weighed on their arrival from the fields.

Delhi (India), men fish in the malodourous Yamuna River between the Amrapali Yamuna Bridge and the Kalindi Kunj Bridge. A tributary of the Ganges, the Yamuna is one of the world’s most polluted rivers. The city of Delhi pours hundreds of millions of litres of sewage into it each day.

La Spezia (Italy), members of the Aston Villa team in the changing room at the end of a summer tournament at the Montepertico Sports Centre. Adolescence is a period of significant change that sees a notable increase in hormone production. The body’s smell changes and sweat, particularly around to the parts of the body covered in hair, becomes stronger and more acidic.

Venice (Italy), the smell of fish fills the ancient Campo della Pescaria market just a few steps from the Rialto Bridge. Smell is crucial to understanding the quality and freshness of fish in a market: if it is fresh, the smell will be a delicate marine odour, if the produce is a few days old it smells of rotting.

Colorno (Parma), at ALMA, the International School of Italian Cuisine, Novella Bagna, teacher of sensorial analysis, gets students to sniff various spices.

Milan (Italy), a perfume is prepared in the laboratory of Atelier Fragranze Milano.

Zemun (Belgrade, Serbia), from right Zlata Ristićz, Dijana Ferhatović and Silvia Sinani (on the phone) smoke a hookah at the Pacha Bar after rehearsing with their band Pretty Loud. A hookah gives off a strong smell of tobacco mixed with molasses, all of which has been strongly flavoured.

Grasse (France), Musée International de la Parfumerie, the work entitled "Smoke Room", created in 2010 by Belgian artist Peter De Cupere, was made using 750 thousand cigarette ends.

Mexico City (Mexico), new dad Roberto Ramirez changes the nappy of his baby, Ava, who is only a few weeks old. The smell of a newborn baby’s faeces is understood to be stronger and more unpleasant if the baby is fed artificial milk.

Lodi (Italy), at ICR - Industrie Cosmetiche Riunite, Italy’s largest perfume producer, vice president Ambra Martone cracks a smile during a smelling session to assess new perfumes.

Milan (Italy), at the San Raffaele Hospital, little Audrey immediately begins to feed from her mum Anna. In the first days of their lives, newborns immediately recognise the smell of their mums that guides them towards nourishment.

Savigliano (Cuneo, Italy), Múses - Accademia Europea delle Essenze (European Academy of Essences), the essence of a perfume is sprayed during a visit to the museum.

Grasse (France), the cabbage rose harvest, a rare variety of rose used in perfumes, takes place in May. There is substantial demand for the roses from perfume houses around the world.

Mexico City (Mexico), embalmer Mario Drummer Duran, together with assistant Carlos Favila (facing away from camera) perform a treatment on the body of Ysidra Pérez, who died of intestinal problems. Corpses emit gas that has an unpleasant odour generated by a chemical compound called putrescine.

Milan (Italy), an old ingredient list of fragrances from the 1960s belonging to the Maffei family and conserved at the premises of their company, Atelier Fragranze Milano.

Amsterdam (The Netherlands), Rijksmuseum, a teacher tries to get his students to reconstruct the sensory features- including the smells – evoked in the still life painted by Dutch artist Pieter Claesz in 1627.

Venice (Italy), the church of Santa Maria di Nazareth, also known as the church of the Scalzi. Colombian nun Miriam Pamplona sniffs some medicinal herbs in the Mystical Garden of Discalced Carmelite Friars.

Turin (Italy), at the Museum of Ancient Egypt Andrea Carretta from SRA Instruments, together with restorer Valentina Turina and (facing away from camera) archaeologist Matilde Borla, use an innovative technique to detect volatile compounds within one of the archaeological artefacts in order to discover the source of the odour.

Turin (Italy), the Museum of Ancient Egypt (Museo Egizio). A jug from the tomb of Kha and Merit (New Kingdom/XVIII dynasty): Andrea Carretta from SRA Instruments uses an innovative technique to detect volatile compounds inside archaeological artefacts in an attempt to understand what they contained and how they smelled.

Grasse (France), Musée International de la Parfumerie, a flask of the original Chanel N°5 perfume from 1921.

Grasse (France), Gip, Grasse Institute Of Perfumery, paper strips called "mouillettes" for testing the various fragrances.

Mexico City (Mexico), owner Guillermo Perez checks the books as soon as he arrives in his second-hand bookshop El Hallazgo, in the Colonia Condesa neighbourhood. The smell of old books, an odour cherished by enthusiasts, is linked to the chemical breakdown of lignin and cellulose that gives off the characteristic odour.

Delhi (India), rice and curry are prepared during a festival, the aroma extends all around.

Milan (Italy), Dr. Roberta La Vela, a speech therapist, together with professor Matteo Trimarchi, an ENT consultant at San Raffaele Hospital, discuss the condition of Vito Salinaro, who is trying to identify a particular odour. Mr Salinaro, months after having recovered from Covid, has not recovered his sense of smell: in such cases patients undergo tailored treatments to help them regain this lost sense.

Casei Gerola (Pavia), members of the Constantinian Order of San Giorgio at the Collegiate of San Giovanni Battista. During the feast of Santa Croce it is customary to disperse incense all around the church, reciting a prayer that begins “Oh Lord, thou hast created resins and the odorous essences that, by burning, spread pleasant fragrances…”

Monterusciello (Naples, Italy), in recent years the Cuma-Licola sewage treatment plant has been emitting a bad smell that has led some local inhabitants to move away.

Milan (Italy), in a stand at the Esxence perfume fair, in order to better appreciate the quality of a fragrance new experiments are being conducted to find associations between perfumes and images in virtual reality.

Delhi (India), a woman walks in front of an enormous and foul-smelling waste dump in Ghazipur to the east of the centre. Thousands of people live nearby. The waste dump contributes to the city’s pollution, its smell extends for miles and it constantly emits large quantities of methane gas. In the summer months, fires frequently break out.

Grasse (France), at the Robertet perfume company, the cabbage roses freshly arrived from the fields are prepared for distillation in order to extract essential oils.

La Spezia (Italy), the San Giuseppe Fair: the Fabrizzi family have been selling porchetta and roast meat at the fair for decades. In Italy the smell of porchetta is an odour often associated with the fair, along with the smells of frying chips, candy floss and pop corn.

Amsterdam (The Netherlands), Van Gogh Museum, tourists photograph the 1889 painting Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers. Inspired by this very work, in 2021 the museum launched the perfume “Sunflower Pop”, with fruity and citrusy tones.

Delhi (India), customers at the Pure Air Bar inside the Citywalk shopping centre, where, for 300 rupees, customers can breathe pure oxygen for 15 minutes.

Turin (Italy), the Museum of Ancient Egypt (Museo Egizio). A wooden box depicting Kha and Merit while they receive an offering from their son Nekhetef. Kha holds in his hand the “seshen”, the lotus flower that closes at night and reopens at dawn, a symbol of rebirth: for this reason the dead were said to sniff it and breath in its fragrance.

Mexico City (Mexico), at the Pet City store in the Coyoacàn neighbourhood, Fernanda washes and dries dog Kesha.

Venice (Italy), Palazzo Mocenigo contains a museum dedicated to perfume with more than two hundred small flacons of essential oils from the 1800s, that were used to create perfumes.

Delhi (India), at the SKK Ayurveda & Panchakarma centre, a patient undergoes a respiratory detox treatment. This is just one way that people try to combat Delhi’s high pollution levels and pervasive smell.

Delhi (India), a malodourous slum beside the railway line in the Mayapuri area.

Milan (Italy), At the French patisserie L'Ile Douce, Fabrizio Barbato sniffs a freshly baked Madeleine. This cake has become a symbol of the link between the sense of smell and memory thanks to Marcel Proust, who mentions it in his "Recherche du Temps Perdu".

Monza (Italy), BrianzAcque. During monitoring of odour emissions, Giovanni Lovati and a technician from Osmotech observe the organic sewage treatment tanks at the San Rocco sewage works. BrianzAcque is a public company that provides water services to approximately one million people to the north of Milan.

Altamura (Bari, Italy), two bakers at work on the premises of the historic Di Gesù bakery, a temple of Altamura DOP bread. The bakery produces 1500kg each day and the aroma is unmistakeable.

Turin (Italy), at the Museum of Ancient Egypt (Museo Egizio) Andrea Carretta from SRA Instruments, together with the museum’s own archaeologists and researchers, uses an innovative technique to detect volatile compounds inside archaeological artefacts in order to try to understand what they contained and how they smelled

Amsterdam (The Netherlands), a vending machine sells hamburgers packaged in a hermetically sealed wrapping from which no smell is emitted. At the beginning of the 1900s, Sigmund Freud classed the sense of smell as “primitive and savage”, wishing for its decline as society evolved. Will the future be increasingly odourless?

Pavia (Italy), at the laboratory of Osmotech-Lifeanalytics, a nalophan bag containing a sample of odorous air is preliminarily analysed using a photoionization detector (PID) to determine the concentration of volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

Amsterdam (The Netherlands), Rijksmuseum, a Dutch pomander from the 17th century. The pomander or pomme d’ambre was filled with essences and worn around the neck by the wealthy classes at that time as an early form of deodorant.

Pavia (Italy), at the Osmotech-Lifeanalytics laboratory, a group of qualified odour analysts sniff the air emitted from the duct of an olfactometer, a tool for detecting and measuring the odour dilution in an air sample.

Amsterdam (The Netherlands), the Rijksmuseum Art Library, founded in 1885: here the smell of old books permeates the various different floors. The smell of old books, an odour cherished by enthusiasts, is linked to the chemical breakdown of lignin and cellulose that gives off the characteristic odour.

Grasse (France), the cabbage rose harvest – one of the rare roses used in perfumes – takes place in May and the petals are highly sought after by perfume houses all around the world.

Milan (Italy), at the Atelier Fragranze Milano, “the nose”, Luca Maffei (back to camera) talks during an evaluation session for new fragrances together with (from left) Cecilia Rapisarda, Luca’s sister Martina Maffei and Beatrice Dorizza.

Venice (Italy), old drawers at the Mascari grocer’s still contain perfumes and spices. From medieval times Venice was Europe’s perfume capital: spices, musks and incense arrived from much of the known world.

$Milan (Italy), Dr Roberta La vela, speech therapist, together with professor Matteo Trimarchi ENT specialist at the San Raffaele Hospital, conduct odour recognition tests on patient Vito Salinaro. Months after recovering from Covid, Mr Salinaro has not regained his sense of smell. In such cases special treatments are attempted to \ to help the patient.$

Lodi (Italy), new perfumes are formulated and assessed in the research and development lab at ICR - Industrie Cosmetiche Riunite, Italy’s largest perfume producer.

Turin (Italy), Museum of Ancient Egypt (Museo Egizio). A cup with an animal substance in the tomb of Kha and Merit (New Kingdom/XVIII dynasty): Andrea Carretta from SRA Instruments uses an innovative technique to detect volatile compounds inside archaeological artefacts in an attempt to understand what they contained and how they smelled.

Mexico City (Mexico), the closure of Metro Line 1 has led to overcrowding on above ground public transport.