FOR LOVE OF THE MOUNTAINS: A NEW BOOK BY PAOLO COSTA DEBATES ALPINE ROMANTICISM

Building on his previous philosophical exploration of the uplands (L’arte dell’essenziale, 2023), Paolo Costa, a researcher at the FBK Center for Religious Studies, explores in his new book (Dalla parte di Heidi: pensare la montagna attraverso l’amore, 2026) the significance of the love for the mountains that many cultivate and some even flaunt these days. The aim of his inquiry is to understand how much of the modern passion for peaks, glaciers, alpine landscapes, and mountain villages is culturally constructed or superficially “romantic,” and what, on the other hand, might represent an essential spiritual resource for effectively responding to the key challenges of the contemporary world.
It is disenchantment – and the seductive power of the bland nihilism of which the disenchantment of the world is the cultured expression – that Costa identifies as the social pathology for which love of the mountains aims to be the antidote. But can there be a love of place mature enough to fully come to terms with the environmental and historical complexity of alpine environments?
Dalla parte di Heidi tries to answer this hard question, drawing on a personal experience of love for the uplands.