"Interviewer: Professor Vannini, how did your interest in mysticism come about? Vannini: It arose spontaneously, from the religious education I received in childhood (this was before the Council!) and, at the same time, from my encounter with and passion for philosophy, which developed during my adolescence. It was precisely by following my own disordered but passionate paths of research that I discovered, in the Marucelliana Library in Florence, the little book edited by Professor Giuseppe Faggin, La nascita eterna (The Eternal Birth), which was the only anthology of Eckhart available in Italian at the time. Although I was only a high school student, I was certain that I had stumbled upon something extraordinary, infinitely deeper (or higher) than anything I had known – or been taught – until then, a certainty that today, half a century later, is, if possible, even stronger for me. Obviously, I did not understand everything, and in order to understand, I began to study philosophy and then theology, devoting myself in particular to the authors and currents that most related to this field. Thus, little by little, I became familiar with that world which, somewhat improperly and, above all, unfortunately in a very ambiguous way, is called “mysticism.”"