I should not tell you of Berenice, the unjust city, which crowns with triglyphs, abaci, metopes the gears of its meat-grinding machines (the men assigned to polishing, when they raise their chins over the balustrades and contemplate the atria, stairway, porticos, feel even more imprisoned and short of stature). Instead, I should tell you of the hidden Berenice, the city of the just...
So begins Italo Calvino's story of the city Berenice, in his book Invisible Cities. This book was inspired by the character of that city, in which an just people are hidden within an unjust people, are hidden within a just people, and on and on. In this book, the story is told through pages embedded in one another. All layers remain visible though, revealing a spectrum of dark and light: justice and injustice intermingling within the city.
